


Sunrise on the Jade Sea

by ladymelodrama



Series: Jade Sea Scrolls [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU, End of S1 canon divergence, Essos fic, F/M, Forget the Iron Throne, Grandpa Jeor, Jorah and Daenerys run away to the Jade Sea, Westeros is overrated, but i promise it's just a detour, but with zombies, deleted scene added as new chapter 3, just more fluff, okay okay slight detour to Westeros, or family vacation to visit Grandpa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2020-01-13 06:27:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 22
Words: 56,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18463361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladymelodrama/pseuds/ladymelodrama
Summary: AU fic/S1 canon divergence - Daenerys takes Jorah up on his offer to help her run away from the Iron Throne nonsense and buy a villa in the Essos version of Italy instead :) With illustrations by @salzrand <3





	1. The Scent of Lemons

**Author's Note:**

> **_Author's Note & Disclaimer:_** Standard disclaimer language regarding not owning Game of Thrones, its characters, plotlines, etc., this is a work of fanfiction, please GRRM for-the-love-of-all-that’s-holy finish the books and please D&D make the last season sparkle - like an anime character ;)
> 
> So yeah, this little fic is dedicated to @subtilia because she asked for some #Jorleesi love and I’m definitely in the mood for it too. Also all love to Emilia, for sharing that adorable Iain/Emilia pic which is possibly the cutest BTS pic in the history of GoT and definitely the inspiration behind this AU trip.
> 
> Anywaaay, so here’s an end of S1 canon divergence for all you lovely readers. Imagine Khal Drogo dies of his wounds (hold the Mirri Maz Duur blood magic), and instead of getting all dragon-queen-on-a-quest-for-vengeance, Daenerys chooses a different path, i.e. runs off with Jorah Mormont to Asshai or some other warm Essosi equivalent to the Amalfi coast. 
> 
> I’m thinking this will be 2-3 chapters and I should probably wait until I’m finished to start posting…nah, let's just start posting :)
> 
> Hope everyone enjoys Season 8 (tonight! omgzz finally!) and I’ll be back soon to post more Xo
> 
> ETA: Cover art added to Chapter 1 (and Chapter 5). All credit (and love!!!) to Anne - @salzrand, who is crazy talented (go check out her stuff on tumblr) and is currently gracing us with some amazing Jorah/Dany art to help with the pain of S8. Thank youuuuu! <3 
> 
> ETA (Part II): And more illustrations added to Chs. 1-19 (because @salzrand is super amazing and asdfghjkl!!! *incoherent fangirl noises*). Mwah, mwah, mwah!

Cover Image By: Anne - @salzrand <3

**_Daenerys_ **

When we first came here, I remember a faint scent of lemons, blown up from a neighboring grove by the sea breeze. 

Jorah had carried me into the villa, as I was too weak to manage those white-washed, alabaster steps myself. My head was tucked against his chest, my hands clutching at the ragged, yellow fabric of his shirt, head buzzing with lingering fever and a host of nightmares that had plagued me since the night Khal Drogo died of his festering wounds.

He carried me upstairs to a clean, spacious room with high ceilings and a soft mattress. He laid me down gently on cool, silk sheets and stayed near my side until I fell asleep. I curled on my side and closed my eyes, a part of me hoping that I would die in the night, a part of me too exhausted to think of anything at all.

“Sleep, _Khaleesi_. Just sleep now.”

Jorah’s voice and the scent of lemons—these were the touchstones that I kept close as I journeyed so near the Night Lands. 

The road had been unkind. Some of the bloodriders of the khalasar pursued us, intent on carving Khal Drogo’s unborn son out of my womb so as to make their claim on the horde secure. They never caught us. Jorah made sure of that. Oh, but they needn’t have worried anyway. I gave birth to a stillborn child the night before we made it out of the Red Waste.

I remember only blood and pain and my own cries in the dark. It was too early, it was too small. And I hadn’t felt it move in days, not since the hour Khal Drogo fell off his horse. 

The baby was such a little thing, with a soft patch of black hair covering his scalp. But it never cried, it never took a breath of air. Not one. Jorah held me afterwards, as I wept long into the night over the dead child cradled in my arms, pressing gentle kisses against my son’s black hair.

_Shhhh, Khaleesi, shhhh…_

The darkness of that night still haunts me. It will always haunt me. Like the storm of my birth, the tragedy of my father and the ruin of my brothers. Or the whisper of a Western country that was once my home. 

All through childhood, Viserys had been intent on returning to Westeros, no matter the cost, no matter the danger. He traded me to the horse lords and would have done it a thousand times over, if only for the chance of seizing our birthright and sending the Usurper to the deepest pits of all Seven Hells.

I was caught up in his plans of vengeance. I never had a choice in the matter. But, as the years pass, Westeros becomes more myth to me than anything else. Perhaps it was once a place of beauty to be revered, but now it’s all shadows and war. 

We’ve heard that the Usurper is dead, stabbed straight through by a wild boar on a hunting trip in the Kingswood. Such foreign news reaches us here, even at the very edge of the world, on the blue-green spray of the Jade Sea. Jorah heard it first from a Dornish sailor and told me as soon as he returned home from the harbor that evening, his hands callused and cracked from days working at fishing nets and ship rigging. 

I didn’t know what to think, having known this was the news Viserys had longed for since we were children. But memories of my brother were tainted by his cruelty. His dreams were no longer mine.

“Let me see your hands,” I said instead, reaching for a jar of beeswax balm before sitting down at the kitchen table beside Jorah. Taking one of his weather-beaten hands in my own, I rubbed the ointment into the dry cracks, where his skin had been washed too many times by saltwater. I muttered, “You always let these get too far before you put anything on them.”

“On Bear Island, we used bear grease,” he mentioned, his eyes getting that faraway look they always get when he talks about his home. Although, recently, I’d noticed that his gaze didn’t drift so far away when he spoke of that evergreen island of spruce and pine, nestled at the top of the world. There was less regret and longing behind his blue eyes when he talked about Bear Island now. More just memories—some pleasant, some melancholy.

“Well, I expect this smells a little better than bear grease,” I answered dryly, a slight tease in my voice. My pale fingers smoothed out the creamy balm, gently moving over those hands I’d come to know so well.

“You heard what I said about Robert Baratheon?” he asked again, more seriously, noting how I hadn’t yet acknowledged the death of the man who stole my father’s throne. My attention was still fixated on his hands. “The Dornish sailor said there’s dispute about Joffrey’s claim and whether he’s Robert’s trueborn son.”

“I heard you,” I replied. My emotions on the subject were conflicted, and he knew it. 

He wondered, perhaps, if this news would awaken a spark within me, doused long ago by the tragic events that drove us to take refuge here, in the East. As soon as I’d recovered from our journey through the Red Waste, he had let me know that it was my decision to make. If I wanted to try for the Iron Throne, he would take me to Westeros. Tomorrow, if I asked. 

But I didn’t ask. Not then and not now. Instead, I just continued scolding him, leaning over the hand that I massaged carefully, my hair falling into my face as I worked, “For a man who grew up on the seashore among fishermen and sailors…you’d think you’d know better than to wreck your hands like this.” 

He smiled at my half-hearted chiding, his teeth showing white against the healthy brown of his summer-tanned skin. With the hand that had yet to receive my attentions, he brushed a loose strand of my silver-blonde hair back behind my ear and said, with feeling, “Thank you, Daenerys.”

For my family’s sake, I should’ve been glad that Robert Baratheon had met his end. Or that his heir would be another man’s son. So ended the Baratheon line, in scandal and in ruin. Good riddance.

It was a fitting end for the man who murdered my family, but, if I was being honest, I didn’t care so much. And in the days and weeks that followed, I cared even less.

My mind and hands were occupied, by the calm but steady pace of life on the Jade Sea, by the garden I had planted in the front yard of the villa, and whether or not my hands, so long marked for destruction and death, would be able to bring life into the world instead of fire and blood. I longed for my garden to flourish with green, leafy, growing things and was intent on conjuring them from the warm, dark soil of Southern Essos. If I could manage it...

Jorah said I’d have no trouble. He smiled at my fears and said only, “You are not your brothers, _Khaleesi_ …”

He was right. Of course, he was right. When has Jorah Mormont ever proved himself false to me? 

_Once, Daenerys_ …his voice echoes in my head, too filled with remorse to ever let me forget. The voice promises, with steely conviction, _But never again._

The very hour Lord Eddard Stark lost his head half a world away, to a mad child’s tantrum, Jorah came home with a heavy burden on his heart. The news from the West was all secrets and lies and he wanted nothing to do with them. He said he hated secrets, taking my hand and leading me to the terrace in the front room, framed by decorative arches and a balcony that overlooks the shining, sparkling waters of the Jade Sea. 

The sheer white curtains that I’d hung shimmered quietly in the warm, night air. The lemon trees that I’d planted just below the balcony ledge were blooming and the air was scented with their fragrance. We sat together at the window, speaking in hushed tones.

He told me everything that night. He told me about the pardon that he’d received from Varys, the spymaster in King’s Landing. He told me about the messages he sent, at the spymaster’s bidding. He told me about the wine merchant and why he forced the man to drink out of the cask that might have killed me. 

My sweet, steadfast knight couldn’t look at me, but kept my hand captive in his own, imploring me to understand.

He said flatly, not as an excuse, not as justification, but just the blunt truth, “I didn’t know you then, Daenerys. I just wanted to go home. I hadn’t been home in so long.”

His blue eyes betrayed such depth of feeling—shame at his own past, horror at how things might have turned out, anger that those conniving, villainous men in King’s Landing might have so easily succeeded…and love for me. No matter when I looked into those blue eyes, I saw Jorah’s love for me.

He couldn’t hide it. He never could, not once, from the day we talked of our prayers and shared desire for home. 

But Gods, that’s why I loved him back. It had come upon me slowly, surely, growing like the blue and violet flowers that I’d planted around the villa. I forgave him the moment the words fell from his mouth. And to prove my forgiveness, I used my free hand to catch his strong chin. I forced him to look at me. If he couldn’t see the reflection of love written in my expression, I’d have to prove it.

And I’d been thinking about proving it for some time anyway. Since coming here, we’d fallen into a domestic routine that bordered on the blissfully ordinary. But he still slept down the hall and his touch remained as chaste as ever. Occasionally, he risked a touch—a lingering kiss against the top of my head after breakfast, before heading down to work long hours at the docks in the harbor. A gentle press of his fingers against the soft part of my palm as he helped me up from my knees in the garden.

But he wouldn’t dare risk more than that. I knew he wouldn’t, as strong and stubborn as any bear. 

And so, on that night that he told me everything—I was the one who did the risking, cautiously but deliberately leaning forward and pressing a kiss to Ser Jorah Mormont’s surprised but willing lips. The kiss was sweet, soft and a long time coming. I pulled back slightly to see the astonishment written in his dear, familiar features. With my lips parted and my eyes hungry, I asked for more. 

He returned the kiss with another. And another after that. Of course, he did. Jorah Mormont has never denied me anything.

The sweetness of those kisses deepened with each pass of our lips, a passion written in the whispers of breath that we exchanged, blossoming like night-blooming jasmine. We stayed on that balcony for some time, wrapped in each other’s arms, with the sounds of the sea in the distance and the pale scent of lemons lingering in the air all around us.


	2. The Red Door

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to write this chapter from Jorah’s POV but changed my mind. I’m sticking with Daenerys for now (subject to changing my mind again lol). I was a Dany superfan until S4 (and I’ll love her forever because of the early seasons) but lately, I just find it difficult to understand…what her deal is? Yeah, yeah—Iron Throne, Seven Kingdoms, born to rule, yours to take. We get it. You’ve said it _several_ times.
> 
> So anyway, writing from her perspective makes me like her again, because all the early-series Dany-awesomeness (gentle heart, survivor of abuse, discovering her own worth) is back. And I can flip the Iron Throne switch and play in AU land where much nicer things happen. Ahem, like this…
> 
> As always, thanks for reading/commenting! Xo 
> 
> Illustration by Anne - @salzrand <3
> 
> (P.S. if Jorah dies next week, I’m gonna set something on fire. Just sayin’)

**_Daenerys_ **

“Would you do something for me?” I asked, murmuring the words against Jorah’s chest, where I lay curled against him. It was near dawn and the sea breeze was still mild, rustling the lace valences of our bedroom window with the gentlest touch. The horizon was ringed with a gold light that had yet to bleed into the sea. The bedroom lay cloaked in veils of grey-violet.

“Anything,” Jorah answered with his husky rasp, made huskier by a night of sleep. 

_Well, mostly sleep._ I amended in my head, as my nightgown had been discarded at the foot of the bed early in the night and his chest was as bare as a Dothraki warlord. The Essosi nights were warm enough to melt butter, especially when spent in a lover’s company. Our skin was cool now, where hours ago I felt sweat beading against my neck and shoulders, my knuckles kneading against his back muscles as I pulled him into me, arching into the embrace with a soft moan of pleasure.

The chill of the morning air brought relief to my flushed skin and his. I found myself absently tracing patterns on his chest with my fingertips. Nonsensical patterns, like the ridges on those petrified dragon’s eggs that I had placed in my garden as ornaments. Jorah’s fingers were in my hair, running through the long, silver-blonde strands slowly, picking up one and moving to the ends before picking up another in a familiar, soft caress that I cherished.

He loved my hair. He told me so often enough.

“It’s a frivolous thing,” I warned him of my request. “Foolish even.”

“Nothing you want is foolish, _Khaleesi_ ,” he answered, chiding me for the self-deprecation. He knew what Viserys’s years of cruelty and abuse had broken inside me. The confidence I gained as Khal Drogo’s bride tried to mend it, but there were still cracks and fissures, exposed too easily. The night Drogo died, I was suddenly reminded of what I wasn’t. Neither princess nor _Khaleesi_ , despite Jorah’s use of the title the very hour it was no longer true. I wasn’t a queen. I wasn’t a conqueror. I wasn’t…anything.

_You were everything to me. You are everything to me._ Jorah didn’t say it at the time. Not in words. But he’s said it a number of times since, unwilling to let me forget.

He knows the feelings that threatened to overtake me while we crossed the desert, feelings that might have locked me in a cage of madness and grief. Our flight from the blood riders of the khalasar drained me of any semblance of power or hope and the Red Waste is where my son’s tiny body is buried in the sand.

There are shadows in my life that will never be cast out, no matter what I do. But I survived. Jorah carried me out of those shadows to the seashore. And here, at the edge of the Jade Sea, I was beginning again. With him. 

I could feel the change within me, a softening of sharp edges, a healing of old wounds, a lessening of shadows…especially when we were together like this, in the tranquil hours of early morning, touching, breathing, speaking in dulcet tones about little things. 

At his words, I lifted my head from his chest and pressed an affectionate kiss against the side of his mouth, my lips tickled by the whiskers of his days’ old beard. A grin spread over my features. My bear needed a shave. 

His wandering hand stilled in my hair, cupping the back of my head while the other hand tightened around my waist, gathering me closer to enjoy a proper kiss. 

For a military man, I was always surprised by how sensitive and how soft his mouth could be, sensually teasing at my bottom lip before sinking in to claim the deeper kisses. Beneath the gentle crush of our bodies, I could feel the lean muscles of his torso and the bearish strength in his arms and legs. I fit against him so snugly, curves fitting in all the right places. We were a matched set and I never tired of discovering how smoothly we could slip from affection to passion and back again.

Minutes passed. An hour?

“You wanted to ask me something,” he reminded me, as he nuzzled the skin just beneath my ear before trailing his lips over the curve of my neck, slowly and without rush. It was hard to manage rational thought while he was at this sort of play, as it was a familiar precursor to other activities.

“Mhmm,” I replied with no real comprehension of the question, my eyes sliding shut as he moved to my collar bone and then lower, to the soft skin at the curve of my breast.

“Daenerys?” he tried again, finally lifting his head, blue eyes seeking out mine. 

We’d changed positions without me realizing it, as I’d been willingly lost in his attentions. Somehow we were now sitting up in bed, me sitting squarely in his lap, my arms twined around his neck. That cool morning sea air brushed over my skin like a silk sheet and the sun was now peeking out over the waters, casting our bedroom in a muted golden glow. 

With another grin, I bent down and pressed one more kiss to his lips before we settled back against the mess of pillows. Jorah pulled me down with him and I found myself sprawled over him again, which is where I preferred to be.

He held me in place with a steady arm. I nestled at his shoulder, reaching across the red-blond hairs that covered his bare chest to catch his other hand. Our fingers interlaced, as was habit, with his thumb soon stroking the ridge of my knuckles lovingly.

“Would you find me some red paint?” I asked, after a few minutes of sweet silence, disturbed only by the far off calls of gulls and cormorants in the harbor. I didn’t have to tell him what I intended to do with the paint. We had no secrets, not for a long time. He knew about the house in Braavos and what it would mean for me to once again live in a house with a red door.

It would mean I was finally home. Here. With him. 

Feeling nearly shy with the revelation, I hid the deeper meaning in more domestic reasons, “I think it would look nice against the white walls of the villa, don’t you?”

He nodded but seemed distracted, turning introspective in that quiet, almost sullen way that always made me curious. Still, he made sure to shift slightly, pressing another kiss to the top of my head.

“I would paint the world red for you, love,” he admitted finally, his voice filled with such depth of feeling that I shivered on the words, and the sworn oath behind them, my mind wandering briefly to what might have been. 

If I had stayed on course, stubborn to the last. If I had taken back my father’s throne from those men who stole it…I’m afraid I would have held him to that vow. No matter the cost. To either of us.

In fire and blood—oh, we would have painted the _whole_ world red. Sometimes I see it in my dreams and it’s a horrific sight, the black water wreathed in flames, grass fields smoldering under a shower of cinders, a wall of ice cut down by a dragon’s breath of fire, and buckets of blood spilled in the snow…

_You would have broken my heart…and yours, my princess._ These words echoed from a place of shadows and I ignored them.

I nestled closer to Jorah, taking a deep breath, banishing those darker thoughts from my head by focusing on the sensations of the moment. I listened to the familiar rise and fall of Jorah’s breathing and the steady beat of his heart. I felt the smooth caress of his touch over my fingers and the strong grip of the arm that encircled my waist. 

_Seven hells can take ‘what might have been’. I’ll take this._

Westeros was bathing itself in blood anyway, without our help. The news that came from the west was all death and destruction, as House Lannister and House Stark had taken up a war that might destroy them both. 

Indeed, a few months later, we would hear of a wedding between the Tully heir and Walder Frey’s comeliest daughter. Jorah once told me that Walder Frey had always been an untrustworthy bastard, no more worthy a friend than the thirteen kings of Qarth or the shady merchants of Asshai. 

But this news was dire for the Tullys and damning for the Freys, who would never again be able to host a guest in their house without suspicion and scorn. Their house would be cursed with the memory of the bloodiest wedding to befall the countryside. It was a complete massacre. They call it the Red Wedding, which was true enough. And I’m convinced that the color will never prove more unkind to a family, as they say Catelyn Stark’s throat was criss-crossed by the red ribbons of a knife blade while her eldest son and his wife lay in puddles of blood on the floor nearby. 

And I can’t help but think that I might have suffered a similar fate…

_Red. The color of fire, the color of blood._

Oh, but the color has been kind to me, as on the same night—or morning rather, as I remember glimpsing the first rays of sunrise coming over the Jade Sea in a haze of sharp pain and then glorious relief—I gave birth to a baby girl, red and squalling, healthy as a little bear cub. 

I didn’t know it yet but that morning that I asked Jorah to find me paint for the front door, our child was already growing inside me, taking hold with a fierceness of will that she’d inherited from both of us. 

That morning, we slipped back into a gentle silence, waiting for morning to break. Resting against Jorah, I closed my eyes once more, content in the knowledge that I’d chosen the red door over the Seven Kingdoms. 

And promising myself that, given the choice, I would do so a thousand times over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pfffft. I mean, if I was in charge of the show, no question. Essos for the win ;)


	3. A Simple Fortune

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, darlings. This is just a deleted scene (i.e. more fluff) which I posted as a one-shot last week. But I think it fits the fic too well so I'm going to try to insert it where it belongs (between current chs. 2 and 3). Wish me luck :) 
> 
> P.S. Also, salzrand has worked her magic again because she's just generally amazing and talented like that. Check out the new illustration for this chapter and be smothered in soft Jorleesi feels <3 <3 <3

     

**_Jorah_ **

When we returned from the market, Daenerys sat heavily on the bench outside the villa, taking her rest in the flickering shade of those lemon trees in the front garden. 

The day had been long and we had walked up and down the bazaar in the village for hours, perusing the wares of cloth merchants, fur traders, armorists, florists, jewelers and a few more exotic stalls set up by merchants and traders from the harbor cities of Yi Ti and the shadowlands beyond Asshai.

Once every few months, the village played host to a market fit for a much larger city. We were a small harbor but our proximity to the Jade Gates made the village an attractive venue for those who didn’t wish to travel all the way to Qarth or the markets in Vaes Dothrak. And here, there was no price of salt, silver or seed to be paid to the _dosh khaleen_.

Even some of the Qarthians came east for the market, with their fortune tellers, palm readers and street magicians claiming the attention of many with their clever tricks and minor sorceries.

As we walked out of the market, one of the fortune tellers, a young woman with gold bangles and white roses braided in her black hair, had whispered a few words in Daenerys’s ear, bringing a grin to her lips. She didn’t tell me what the woman had said but squeezed my arm lightly as we moved away from the fortune teller’s stall, pressing her silver-blonde head against my shoulder affectionately. 

The walk home had been long. And Daenerys was exhausted, though she didn’t say anything while we were at the market. I wish she had. I would have insisted we come home sooner. The day was hot and the market dusty, with travelers coming in from the dry fringes of the Red Waste and the Bone Mountains. 

But she would have insisted on staying, for there had been so much to see and she loved the market. 

The hustling energy in the streets appealed to her, the scent of citrus fruits, roasted meats and spices from the southern islands, the animated shouts of children running up and down the midway, streaming ribbons and kites behind them. I remember how her eyes went wide and her expression sparkled in the western market outside Vaes Dothrak, having never seen anything like it in her life. That day, she was carrying a bouquet of mauve-colored wildflowers in her hands and Khal Drogo’s child in her belly.

Today, she had no wildflowers. Her gardens were overflowing with flowers, of prettier varieties than even the florists from Qarth could manage. Instead, her hands held a ripe pear, her thumb running over its firm skin and waxy stem. And she carried a bolt of blue cloth over her arm that she said would make a fine tunic for the baby.

Our baby. 

In the market, the flowing folds of her summer dress billowed out just slightly and not enough to draw the attention of anyone who didn’t know. But as I slipped my arm around her, steering her through the more crowded sections of the bazaar, I found myself noting the changes in her body, the thickening curve of her waist, which grew daily, the child asserting its existence with vigor. It was a truth that my brain could scarcely accept.

Daenerys was carrying my child. I was to be a father. And likely before the market returned to the village again.

I worried over her, seeing the relief in her features when we returned home and she took a seat on that bench, finally getting off her feet for the first time in hours. I chided myself silently for letting her talk me into staying so long. But Gods, that woman could talk me into anything.

I went into the house and fetched a basin and pitcher, filling the pitcher with water from the pump outside, before returning to her. I brought a dry cloth with me, thrown over my forearm.

“What’s this?” she wondered, narrowing her eyes slightly and smiling, guessing my purpose. She looked tired but she looked happy too, her skin healthily tanned, her braids softer and coming loose at the end of the day. She’d enjoyed herself. So had I, for what it was worth.

The last time we attended a market, in Vaes Dothrak, there were secrets between us. This time, there were none. 

I didn’t answer her question, though I answered her smile. I knelt on the grey stones before her, gently lifting one of her feet onto my bent knee. I undid the laces on her sandals, bringing the leather bindings down from where they climbed her dusty ankle, twisting up her calf. And then I slipped the sandal from her foot, setting it aside, before moving on to the second.

She watched my hands work. Her smile deepened, becoming soft. And she offered no argument as I brought the basin closer, and poured the water from the full pitcher slowly over her skin, washing the dust from her feet.

Her breathing was steady and she relaxed into my caresses as I ran my hands over the bridge of her foot and then the ankle. Her feet were small things, like the rest of her, and were nearly swallowed up by my hands.

“If my hands are too rough, tell me,” I stated, knowing that my work at the harbor did my touch no favors. My hands were callused and worn by saltwater, ship rigging and weather. My hands were not those of a lord in his castle.

“I like your hands on me, Ser,” she answered sweetly, leaning forward to run her own hand though my hair, down to the curls at the nape of my neck, with her elbow resting on my shoulder lazily. She murmured, “I thought I told you that?”

She had. Many times. Since that night we first kissed in the front room, lingering up on the villa’s balcony for hours. And then later, when she brought me into her bed and asked me to stay with her. All night. And the night after that. She had not let me leave since.

I bent and kissed her ankle, the cool dampness of fresh water coming away on my lips. With the dry cloth, I removed the lingering droplets of water from her feet. My fingers then moved to the arch of her foot, suddenly mischievous, brushing the underside in a feather-light manner, in spots that I knew were highly ticklish. 

She snatched her foot away with a laugh, “Oh, don’t you dare!”

I returned her laugh, raising my hands in protest, playing innocent, “What?”

“You know very well what,” she replied, unable to force her grin away, despite the accusing tone. Her hands smoothed out the bodice of her dress, briefly running along the swell of our child, one eyebrow rising just slightly, teasing, “Or don’t you remember how this happened?”

“I remember,” I assured her, getting off my knees and stealing a fleeting kiss from her lips, before taking the seat on the bench beside her. I bade her bring her feet up to rest in my lap, and continue what we’d begun. With a chuckle, I promised, “My hands will behave, I swear it.”

“I don’t trust you,” she said, but her tender expression said otherwise. It spoke of a deeper love and trust than I would ever deserve. And which caught me by surprise every time.

When she found out she was pregnant, I thought she might regret it. All of it. Running away with me, settling here at the edge of the Jade Sea. It had been one thing to escape the clutches of a Dothraki horde, out for blood and vengeance. It was another to bind herself to an entirely new life, with all the old dreams and desires thrown out for something…much different.

Lynesse certainly would have raged against it, going sullen and resentful at the very idea. She always feared having a child, worried it would wreck her figure and tie her down to a life of drudgery.

But Daenerys was not Lynesse. When she told me she was with child, the look in her violet eyes betrayed how well she liked the idea. How well she would love our child. And how much she loved me. _Adored_ me, in a way that I would never have believed possible before coming here. 

I would have been content to love her from the day I met her until the day I breathed my last. To protect her, to keep her safe. I would have been content, I swear it. But to have her love me back…

To have her seek out my touch…

And carry my child…

Daenerys gave me one more sideways glance, smirking in playfulness, but then relented. She turned on the bench, changing her position to drape her legs over my lap, giving up her bare feet to my continued ministrations. And I was true to my word, massaging the heel and arch slowly, up to the ankle and calf muscles, my fingers moving methodically, kneading the knots from her tired limbs with only soft caresses. She sighed on my familiar touch, closing her eyes under the orange shade of the evening, willing to dwell on this bench until the sun set in the western sky.

She looked peaceful but objectively, exhausted.

“You should have told me you were tired,” I scolded her, though gently.

“If I told you I was tired, you would have forced me to come home,” she answered smartly, not bothering to open her eyes. She knew me too well, even then. She argued, “And then I wouldn’t have met that fortune teller.”

“What did she tell you?” I asked, curious. Daenerys had obviously been happy with the fortune, whatever it was. 

At my question, she opened her eyes once again, and that same smile from earlier returned to her lips, brimming with affection and a secret, which she divulged willingly. 

“That my daughter will have blue eyes,” she said, holding my gaze while reaching over to lay her hand over mine. I flipped my hand over, allowing her palm to slide into mine. 

She interlaced our fingers, lovingly, pleased with her next words most of all, “Just like her father.”


	4. Queen of Love and Beauty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _Dracarys._ That’s me burning canon to the ground with this story. Feels good, friends. Feels real good ;)
> 
> Also, expect a few more chapters on this fic in the future. I’m in a Jorah/Dany mood (*sobbing*) and I don’t expect to be done with it any time soon. Xo

**_Daenerys_ **

“Mama?” My daughter called from the front of the house. I heard her little footsteps on the white stones as she passed through the red door and came out into the evening sun.

“I’m out here, Jeorgianna,” I answered her from the gardens, where I was on my knees, digging in the rich earth, planting a row of iris bulbs beneath the shade of a tall cedar tree. Beside me on the grass lay two dozen daisies which I’d pruned from the existing beds to make way for new flowers. 

She emerged from around the side of the villa a few moments later, her expression brightening as soon as she caught sight of me. Her silver-blonde hair was tied in two braids and she wore a blue dress, blue like a summer sky, blue like the eggs in a robin’s nest, made of silk that I’d bought from a cloth merchant who had traveled down from the Bone Mountains of Yi Ti to sell his wares in the villages along the coast. The scarf in my hair was the same color, sewn from the leftover fabric. 

Jorah says Jeorgianna is my twin in miniature. I can’t argue with him. If we stand side by side facing a mirror, it’s impossible to deny the resemblance. All those Targaryen traits are impossible to miss. 

But I also see Jorah’s eyes staring up at me, with a far richer blue than the exotic dye of that silk from Yi Ti. I love my daughter’s eyes as much as I love her father’s. And Jeorgianna’s curious, intelligent eyes betray the existence of Northern blood mixed in with Old Valyria, the blood of the First Men who lived in a land of always winter.

As does her careful, quiet demeanor, which is more Jorah than me. She’s a serious child, far more serious than I was. But I can draw a smile from her as easily as the men down in the harbor draw fish from the sea. It’s the same with her father. 

In my experience, the Mormont stoicism can resist much…but not me.

“Come sit with me,” I beckoned to her and she came immediately. I changed my position, slipping off my knees to sit cross-legged beneath that cedar tree. Jeorgianna settled in my lap as I reached for the daisies beside us. My arms came around her as I passed one of the flowers into her hands and slipped another behind her ear.

“Will you make a daisy crown?” she wondered hopefully, with just a slight hesitation in her tone. 

I kissed her soft, sunset-warmed cheek, strands of my own hair falling against her braids, the colors mixing and nearly indistinguishable—the silver-blonde of true Targaryens, same as my brothers and our ancestors before us. But Jeorgianna was as unlike my brothers as she could be. 

If I said no, she would be disappointed but she wouldn’t show it. Whether it was a natural impulse or something we’d impressed upon her accidently, my daughter never demanded anything, never pinned all her hopes and dreams on anything. 

She was patient, kind and good, and…oh, I loved her so. From the very morning of her birth, when her beautiful, loud cry broke the long night and brought the new dawn with it. I remember the joy and relief I felt as the midwife handed her into my arms, that same relief and joy mirrored on Jorah’s face as he looked down on us. I remember taking his hand and kissing it, overcome with sudden love for the man, having seen his weathered features previously torn up by hours of helpless pacing and praying.

_Please don’t take her from me…_ even through the haze of labor, I remember hearing those desperate words fall off his lips, the memory of my son’s lifeless body and my own brush with death too vivid and sharp to ever be forgotten by either of us.

But Jeorgianna lived and thrived. As did Jorah and I. 

“Yes,” I replied warmly, bringing my arms around Jeorgianna again, this time to squeeze her close. Then I reached over to the daisies and brought them closer, depositing the spray of pretty flowers in her lap. I added, as an easy condition, “If you’ll help me?”

She nodded, those little cheeks rising as a smile stole over her lips.

I showed her how to tear a small hole near the top of each stem, braiding the next flower through, until there was a thick row of yellow-eyed, white petals that we twisted into a daisy crown for her silver-blonde head. 

“Can we make one for you too, Mama?” she asked, not wanting to leave me out.

“I don’t know if we have enough daisies left,” I gave a half-laugh, as I placed the flowers in her hair, smoothing one of the braids over her shoulder so it played nice beneath the addition of daisies. She looked like a woodland princess, fierce as a bear but pretty as a dryad. I gave her another light squeeze and answered gently, “I don’t need a crown, honey.”

“But you’ll have one,” came a masculine voice from just behind us. We both knew that voice. Jorah’s voice, as unmistakable as the stripes on a tiger or the taste of cherries. Both Jeorgianna and I looked up as he came into the garden, with his hands obviously hiding something behind his back.

“Shall I?” I half-teased, tipping my head just slightly and wondering how long he’d been home.

“Yes, Daenerys, you shall,” he answered with conviction, pulling a crown of mauve-colored roses from behind his back. I blinked in surprise, as a crown of flowers was the last thing I expected. The wild roses grew in abundance at the front of the house, in bushes beneath my lemon trees. Jorah had braided a few of them together with far more care than I might have guessed possible of a gruff man from Bear Island who had served as a knight and soldier for most of his life. 

But there it was, with the thorns removed and the buds teased open so delicately.

It was beautiful. And I was struck speechless as he bent down to where we lingered beneath that cedar tree. First, he gently removed the blue scarf, loosening the knot and pulling it away. Then he replaced it with the crown of roses. Jeorgianna was pleased, turning in my lap to weave one of our remaining daisies amongst the roses so we matched.

“There. Now you’re both crowned queens of love and beauty.” Above our daughter’s head, he leaned over and pressed a kiss against my astonished lips before straightening up again. He continued, “The most beautiful girls from the Shadow Lands of Asshai to the Fist of the First Men.”

Jeorgianna smiled more broadly at the compliment, because she loved her father best of all. 

“Your girls,” she amended as she rose from my lap to reach up for him. Jorah took her in his arms immediately, his own smile wide across his face. He hooked his hands beneath her arms and lifted her high up above his head. She squealed in delight. He kissed her cheek soundly on the way down, agreeing, “ _My_ girls.” 

“When did you have time to do this?” I finally managed, trying to suppress my own wide grin.

“While you were making Jeorgianna’s,” he replied, shifting Jerogianna so she was perched on his strong forearm. She leaned against him, playing with the last daisy in her hand, perfectly content in her father’s embrace. “I got home a little while ago.” 

I brushed the unused daisy stems off my skirt and started to get to my feet. The sun was slipping lower in the sky, sinking towards the orange melt of the western waters. It must be nearly dinner time.

“No, let’s eat out here tonight,” Jorah stopped me, lightly reaching out the hand that didn’t hold our daughter to touch my shoulder and then my chin, gently nudging me to tip my face up to meet his expression. He wore a grin that matched my own—filled with love, hope and serenity. In all the time I’d known the man, I’d never seen him so…light of spirit. Where was my sullen Mormont bear tonight, I wondered? 

_This life agrees with him._ I thought, the implications of the choice we’d made and continued to make spreading warmth throughout my body and soul. _This life agrees with us both._

“You stay here with your mother,” he told Jeorgianna. “I’ll get us something.” He handed her back to me after planting another sweet kiss against her temple. She came to me, arms slipping around my neck, daisy-crowned and happy to be passed between us. I balanced her on my hip as we waited for her father’s return. 

Which was soon enough. He brought a loaf of bread and cheese, with oil and a bowl of summer raspberries, with red wine for us and water for Jeorgianna. He brought out a blanket that we spread on the grass of the seaward-facing side of the villa. 

We dined on the simple but delicious meal as the sun sank slowly into the Jade Sea.


	5. Blood of My Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this fic is quickly becoming the softest, fluffiest, most anti-canon thing I’ve ever written for Jorah/Dany, I’ve decided to make a few other changes. Starting with Jeor Mormont, who never should have been killed off in the first place, thank-you-very-much…especially considering they decimated the rest of his house by the end of their darkest-timeline-version of events. Because…subversion *rolls eyes*
> 
> Also p.s. I’m loving the influx of new Jorah/Dany fics! I haven’t had time to read/comment on all yet but yay for fix-its and alternate scenes and the general love of this ship (“we may not be a large ship, but we’re a proud one” lol). 
> 
> Thank you all, readers/writers/random visitors, for keeping the true spirit of our show alive despite certain show writers who did their best to burn it to the ground. <3

**_Jorah_ **

There are times—many times—when I wake up here, in this place, with Daenerys beside me, or when I look at our children, Jeorgianna and the new baby, and I still don’t believe any of it’s real. 

For how could a man like me, sins as black as the worst of them, find himself here, surrounded by the trappings of peaceful love and unmatched beauty, living a quiet life at the edge of the Jade Sea?

I know what my senses tell me. I can reach out in the night and feel Daenerys’s smooth skin beneath my hands and smell her scent, a mix of lavender and citrus, on the pillow next to mine. I can see Jeorgianna as she runs to me at the end of the day and hear her laughter as I lift my little girl high into the air. I can hear her say, “Papa, come,” and feel her grab my hand as we walk up the cobblestones of the front walkway and into the house with the red door.

I know the scant weight of my newborn son, still only a few weeks old, as I carefully cradle him in my arms.

“Do you think his hair will stay dark?” Daenerys mused, standing next to me. Her hand was looped at my arm, chin resting against my shoulder as we stood together in the nursery, both looking down at our sleeping child. It was late. The white moon was rising over the sea outside the nursery windows. 

“My mother’s hair was dark,” I replied, bringing her face to memory easily. I allowed, “But so was mine when I was born.”

I laid him down in the crib gently, watching the boy stretch his tiny fingers once, yawning, before settling down once again. I laid my hand feather-light against his chest, feeling his small breaths escape with an ebb and flow that was even and steady. After a fussy afternoon, Aemon slept soundly.

Aemon Mormont. My son.

_Our son_ , I amended, as I pulled my hand back from the crib and returned it to my side. I felt Daenerys slip her hand into mine and my fingers curled around hers immediately, as I cast a glance her way. Her gaze was locked on the baby, her eyes transfixed by the tiny thing. She took her turn, taking her free hand and pressing a kiss against her fingers before briefly laying those same fingers against Aemon’s forehead. 

I remember when she told me that she feared her hands were fashioned only for fire and blood. She needn’t have worried. In all my years, I’d never seen a mother so good and gentle with her children. 

_Our children_. The thought continued to give me pause. Jeorgianna and Aemon’s existence were not something I’d ever hoped or dreamed possible. I had resigned myself to the fact that I would never father children and that the line of my father would end with me.

I didn’t deserve this—a second life with her, with our children. But gods help me, having tasted its sweet flavor, I would never have the strength to resist this life.

Not in a million years. 

Daenerys had named our son after a man she’d never met, an uncle she never knew she had. I’d almost forgotten his existence as well. He’d outlived so many and all those that remembered him as a Targaryen prince were long gone. 

Old Aemon Targaryen—the wise maester of Castle Black, the only man to ever give up the Iron Throne so willingly—I’d met him more than once as my father was Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and the old man was his right hand. He was humble and wise, in a way that not many could manage, especially over a life as long as his. And in a way that the fiery and passionate dragons were certainly not known for.

All that time traveling with Daenerys and Viserys through the grasslands, from Pentos to Vaes Dothrak, and we never talked about him once. I hadn’t thought…I knew the connection but I just didn’t think to mention him, until one strange night, only a year or so after we’d come to this place, before Jeorgianna was born. 

That night, I woke up with a start, as Daenerys shook me awake from deep sleep. She was wild-eyed, her eyes hooded with a sight that went beyond the seen world. She implored me, persistently, telling me that I needed to write my father. That very night. 

“I _saw_ your father,” she said plainly, her voice haunted with a lingering vision. “I saw a bear in the snow, being eaten alive by a murder of crows.”

“It was just a dream, Daenerys,” I answered her, stupidly, still too quick to dismiss those things that can’t be explained.

She shook her head and insisted, her voice taking on a cadence that was too mystical to be ignored, “No, your father’s headed north. He seeks answers but he will find none…and the Old Bear will die in the house of _Craster_.”

The name of that cursed wildling falling from her lips froze my blood, despite the warm night. Daenerys didn’t know that man’s name. She’d never heard the name of Craster in her life, not from me and not from anyone else.

“Write him, Jorah,” she begged, the vivid images of the vision fading from her eyes already but the message left behind clear. “Warn him. Tell him to stay at the Wall.”

I hadn’t spoken to my father in years. We hadn’t said goodbye as I fled Westeros, in shame and ruin. I left the sword behind—as the gesture would speak the words I couldn’t bring myself to say at the time. 

I never expected to speak with my father again, our relationship having been severed for good, by distance, by disappointment and by my best efforts to destroy my sense of honor. But the look in Daenerys’s eyes was too chilling and the pressure of her hand on my arm was too insistent.

I’ve never believed in visions or prophecy, as the Lord of Light’s fire priests demand monstrous sacrifices and the Seven are too silent in my experience to give any sort of guidance. And the Old Gods don’t live near the Jade Sea. 

But I believed in Daenerys. With all my heart, I believed in her. 

I wrote him, as she asked. She wouldn’t let us go back to bed until it was done. I told him of Daenerys’s vision and bid him to take care. Telling my father not to do something was a fool’s errand so I didn’t attempt it. But I told him where we were and what had transpired to lead me to this place, with this woman. Someone should know and my father would take the knowledge to his grave. I told him one other thing too, as Daenerys had told me the unlikely news, only a few days before.

_You are to be a grandfather._

“He won’t reply,” I mentioned to Daenerys grimly, as I sealed the letter closed. I cautioned her, tempering her hopes, “And he might not listen.”

“He will,” she seemed so sure. She countered softly, “You would.”

“Perhaps,” I conceded, muttering over the power that dragons appeared to have over bears. “He seems to listen to Maester Aemon’s advice so perhaps he’ll heed yours as well.”

Daenerys blinked at the name. 

“Aemon?” she asked, the syllables of that name falling off her tongue in a familiar manner. “Like Aemon the Dragonknight?”

With dawning clarity, I realized my mistake. Her knowledge of her family history had been filtered through Viserys, who himself was only a boy when they were forced to leave Westeros, exiled and hunted by Robert Baratheon’s assassins before they were Jeorgianna’s age. 

Viserys favored the tales of their family’s triumphs and victories, the ones that ended with dragon fire and all the other houses bending to their will. The story of an old man who once gave up the chance to be king would hold no interest for him. And he certainly wouldn’t have shared that story with Daenerys, even if he knew it. 

I told her what I knew. That Aemon was her great-grandfather’s brother, both sons of Maeker Targaryen and Dyanna Dayne. That he’d been offered the throne when he was a young man but gave it up, seeking a life of contemplation and duty to the realm at the Wall instead. That he was over a hundred years old, blind and frail, but still gave the same wise counsel that had served dozens of Lord Commanders and kings. 

“Why did he give it up?” she wondered. I could only shrug, not knowing the man’s reasons and not willing to speculate. 

Daenerys turned introspective and I wondered if the news pleased her, to know she wasn’t the only dragon left in the world. Not yet. Or if the knowledge made her sad, as it might remind her of the life she had lost and the family that was torn from her.

She didn’t tell me which. But when our son was born, she said she’d like to name him Aemon.

_He’ll learn wisdom and patience from you. But I want him to know that not all dragons are cruel or carry a bloodlust for power._

_There’s no danger on that score, love. Not while his mother lives._

Now the baby slept. Like his sister in the room across the hall, both safe and healthy and loved by their parents. _Our children_. No, despite the number of years that continued to pass us by, I still had a hard time believing any of this was real.

But Daenerys, gods be good, always did her best to convince me. She pulled me away from the side of Aemon’s crib gently, downstairs, to where a letter sat on the kitchen table, still unopened and waiting for me.

It arrived yesterday. My father’s seal, that of the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, was unbroken. His familiar handwriting was peeking out from the inside of the scroll.

I didn’t expect an answer. Not to the first letter, nor to the second, sent more recently, wherein I told him that he was a grandfather now twice over.

“Why are you afraid to read it?” she asked, curious at my hesitation.

“I betrayed my father,” I reminded her. “I brought shame upon our house…”

“You’ve made amends,” she argued back.

“It’s not that easy…”

“I think it is.”

I nearly laughed, though it was a bitter sound. Her stubbornness matched my own and her gentle heart would have my sins washed clean…but she didn’t know my father, she didn’t know what honor meant to Jeor Mormont. Or worse, the loss of it.

She handed me the scroll, her eyes imploring me to stop putting it off and just read the damn thing. 

And so I did, breaking the seal with a glower on my face that Daenerys met with a cheeky smile that said she’d have none of my miserable nature tonight.

My eyes fell to the page. His words were simple and to the point, as brusque as they’d always been: 

“I sent rangers above the Wall and they met a bloody end at Craster’s Keep, as did Craster himself. Thank your Targaryen girl for me. The dead move on Westeros and I fear this will be a winter that may end us all. But for now, the Night’s Watch will wait and hold the border.”

There was a break in the line, a mark where his pen had scratched as if ending. Although, he must have changed his mind, as there was a final line scrawled at the bottom of the parchment:

“Tell the children their grandfather sends his love.”

Bear Island is a cold place and we are a cold people. But my vision blurred as I read his words and I found myself swallowing hard. Daenerys’s smile fell, concern for me breaking across her expression. I shook my head, allaying her fears and handed her the letter wordlessly. As she scanned my father’s letter, I turned towards the window, gaze drawn far beyond the visible countryside and the sea, where moonlight danced on the lapping waters.

Soon, I felt Daenerys’s arms wrap around me from behind, holding me close. She didn’t say anything, guessing my thoughts. My hands covered hers, stroking her wrist for a moment before turning and accepting her embrace fully. Her arms slid up around my neck as my own gathered her at the waist.

“You’ll see him again, Jorah,” she promised, with a confidence that made my heart sing, despite my own doubts.

I may not have believed in much. But gods, I believed in her.


	6. The Dance of Bears and Dragons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this chapter went a little long but it’s pretty much solid marshmallow fluff in the spirit of smothering canon to death with anti-canon alternate timeline deliciousness :) 
> 
> The chapter was also totally inspired by @salzrand and her incredible Jorah/Dany artwork (which I can’t get enough of). She’s graciously allowed me to use her most recent awesomeness as the cover of this fic and ummm, I love it so much, I’ve decided to link it in the chapter itself because (much like this fic) IT’S SO FLUFFY <3 <3 <3
> 
> Also, I’ve got some plans for the fic that will likely mean at least 4-5ish more chapters? Get. Excited.
> 
> As always, thanks for being super amazing/generous readers! Xoxo

**_Daenerys_**

There’s a green and sun-soaked vineyard up on the bluffs above the coast here, owned by Seti Vymair, a generous, self-made merchant from Volantis who made his fortune and then moved here to make wine and raise his family on the edge of the Jade Sea. When his youngest daughter married a sailor from the village, he spared no expense. The stone palace that he calls a home played host to two full days of festivities, with nearly the whole village and the countryside beyond named among his honored guests.

Jorah and I were surprised to receive an invitation to the wedding, as we kept to ourselves mostly, an old habit borne of years of exile and running from the past. Trust was never something that came easy. To either of us. But the groom worked for Jorah down at the docks and I had met Seti’s wife, Rasha, a few times when she stopped by the villa to admire my gardens, which by that time had grown far beyond their original plots.

The lemon trees at the front of the house had grown strong and the flower beds flourished. I had enough daisies to make Jeorgianna a hundred crowns and then a hundred more, of daffodils, roses, amaryllis and aster. Occasionally, Jorah would bring me home foreign seeds from eastern travelers who passed through the harbor, and those seeds grew flowers that had names I didn’t know. But they bloomed in deep shades of indigo, cerulean blue, scarlet and iced violet.

I imagine the paleness of those purple flowers was even paler on the steep ridges of the Bone Mountains where they grew naturally, in the rocky undergrowth, high above the clouds and dusted with snow.

The dress I decided to wear to the young couple’s wedding was of a similar color, so lavender it might have been mistaken for white. After pulling it on, I reached my arms awkwardly and tried to do up the last of the buttons, but they ran too high up the middle of my back. And before I was finished, I heard Aemon stir in the other room. I’d put him down for a nap mid-morning, hoping he wouldn’t fuss too much through the long afternoon.

I abandoned the last of the faithless buttons and went to the nursery, where I found my eight-month-old son pulling himself up along the crib railing and, with admirable but still feeble attempts, trying to climb over the other side. 

“And where do you think you’re off to, little bear?” I chided the baby, reaching over the rail and scooping him up into my arms in a practiced motion. 

I kept him aloft for a moment, smiling at his sleepy smiles, planting soft kisses against both of his cheeks before settling him in the crook of my arm, balanced against my hip. I teased against his downy soft hair, “Looking for me, were you? Or your father? No, neither one of us, I bet. It’s Jeorgianna you want to see, isn’t it?”

At the mention of his sister’s name, Aemon’s eyes lit up and he bounced in my arms, confirming my guess. Oh, he loved his sister. And why not? Jeorgianna doted on her brother, bringing him treasures from morning until night, frogs and dragonflies from the garden, red leaves and sea stones from the beach. 

“Well, let’s go find her,” I murmured, wandering down the upstairs hall as I simultaneously smoothed down the baby’s hair, which was sticking up every which way from his nap. I didn’t look up from Aemon as I called, “Jeorgianna, are you almost ready? We’ll be late if we don’t leave soon.”

“I’m ready,” Jeorgianna promised and appeared in the doorway of her bedroom to confirm it, wearing a sun dress, as summer yellow as the many lemons dripping off the tree limbs outside, trimmed with white lace and complemented by another daisy crown on her head. 

Like any little girl dressed for a wedding, she looked like a princess. Unlike most little girls, it’s what she might have been born to be. 

But I knew the dark side of being a princess more than most. And, in the end, how glad I was that she _wasn’t_ a princess. How glad I was that she was just a fisherman’s daughter. How glad I was that she wore daisy crowns instead of silver tiaras on her head.

“You look so pretty,” I told her, shifting Aemon in my arms and reaching down to straighten a folded bit of lace at her collar. She grinned at the compliment and curtsied formally, as she’d been practicing all week.

“Thank you, Mama,” Jeorgianna said.

“You’re welcome, sweetheart,” I answered.

I didn’t hear Jorah come upstairs. But suddenly, I felt hands doing up the remaining buttons of my dress. 

The feel of Jorah’s hands was as familiar to me as the sound of his voice and I didn’t need to turn around to know it was him. I kept still, letting him work. In my arms, Aemon caught sight of his father over my shoulder and bounced happily again, cooing sounds escaping his tiny lips. 

Before finishing the last couple buttons, Jorah bent and pressed a kiss between my shoulder blades. The simple caress of his lips against my skin sent pleasant flutters through my stomach, as always. 

“Are we ready to go?” he wondered, as he came around my side, one hand trailing the thin silk at my waist, the other giving Aemon a light tickle against his little side. The baby giggled and squirmed, pressing closer to me as he tried to escape his father’s tickles. 

Jorah was dressed in his formal wedding clothes as well, wearing a shirt of that golden shade that gave his blue eyes a sea-like depth and his dark brown surcoat, belted with fine leather and polished brass. He always had a vitality about him that was kingly, whatever he wore. 

_My handsome bear_ , I thought with pride, and certainly not for the first time. 

In answer to his question, Jeorgianna nodded, a little more vigorously than she probably intended. She was excited and couldn’t hide it. 

“Almost,” I answered, before smoothing down Aemon’s most rebellious locks of hair once more. “Unless you want to give me time to braid my hair?”

Jorah looked at my hair, worn down and pulled back very simply, and shook his head.

“I like it softer, lass,” he replied honestly, perhaps a little too happy that I wouldn’t have time to change the style. Though I knew from experience that, despite his preference, he’d like my hair however I wore it. But he insisted, “And we’re late enough already.” 

### 

The wedding was beautiful. And relatively quiet, given the reputation weddings have acquired for violence lately, at least on the other side of the sea. It wasn’t more than half a year past that Joffrey Baratheon had sputtered and choked on a poisoned glass of wine at his doomed wedding to Margaery Tyrell.

And what I had known of weddings on this side of the sea was little better, having experienced too many with the Dothraki horde and their penchant for using an arakh to slice open the throat of any man that gave them the slightest offense or stole the same poor woman they both intended to rape.

But this wedding was as unlike a Dothraki wedding as it could be.

Set up against a backdrop of sea and sky, Seti Vymair’s daughter and her favorite sailor made their vows to each other in front of a gathering nearly as large as a coronation in King’s Landing, but without the requisite backstabbers and spies in attendance. 

Cut flowers from my gardens decorated Seti and Rasha’s outdoor terraces and the myriad of raised verandas, with all their terracotta stone work. Colorful garlands of green ivy and creeping blooms of morning glories had been hung from wooden lattices and iron railings. 

The weather was mild and the feast went on all afternoon, with racks of lamb roasting on open-air fire pits, the smell of nicely charred meat mixing with the scent of Jade Sea fruits—lemons, peaches, cherries, pears and all those grapes from the vineyard—together with the salt from the sea air. 

After the ceremony, Jorah and I claimed a spot at a small table on the breezy end of the highest veranda, with carved, window-backed chairs and many-colored cushions strewn about on the stone floor for additional seating, which was needed, as the number of Seti and Rasha’s guests spilled beyond the terraces onto the lawns and into the vineyard. Jorah remained standing, as I took one of the chairs beside him, resting Aemon on my knee. 

The musicians were tuning up their citterns and lyres and one of the harpists ran her delicate hands over the strings, sending a waterfall of notes through the air that preceded the first songs of the evening. A few couples rose to begin the dances.

Jeorgianna had made fast friends with some of the village girls, trading flowers and ribbons, before running down to the fountain at the center of the main terrace, where the hired magicians from Qarth were currently conjuring tricks with white doves and black sparrows. 

“Stay within sight,” Jorah told her before she left, giving a kind but firm command.

“I will,” she promised.

Aemon wanted to go with his sister, as always. I could feel his little feet push up against my knees. 

“You’ll be able to run after her soon enough, Aemon,” I teased the baby, hooking my hands beneath his arms so he could stand up straight. The baby wasn’t walking yet, but it would be soon. The thought was bittersweet, as I preferred Aemon close to me, balanced on my hip or held in my arms most of the time, just as I had with Jeorgianna. I begged him, “Don’t rush it.”

Jorah and I shared a brief glance that said he guessed my thoughts. And he wasn’t the only one.

As Jeorgianna ran off with her friends, Rasha, the bride’s mother, slipped into the empty seat beside me. Rasha had an inherent elegance that transcended the expensive jewels and fabrics she wore. If she was dressed in rags instead of silks, I think she’d be able to command a room with her mere presence. More than many a queen.

She thanked me again for the flowers.

“Of course,” I replied, with a smile. “It was my pleasure.”

Nodding at Jeorgianna down below, the older woman mentioned, “It goes by too fast.”

Her eyes then drifted from my daughter to hers, the comely young woman dancing with her sailor on the terrace further below. She addressed her next words to Jorah, “You’ll soon be giving _your_ daughter away, Ser.”

Jorah’s reply was a sort of sigh that sounded more like a bear’s growl. He knew the woman was right but I don’t think he enjoyed the thought of our children growing up any more than I did. 

“Don’t remind me,” he muttered in mock displeasure, drawing a knowing smile from Rasha and another shared look of commiseration from me.

Aemon settled in my arms, laying his head back against my chest in defeat, gaze still on his sister but knowing his limitations. Rasha and I turned to other, less wistful subjects—the weather, the wedding, news from the village. A couple sailors that Jorah knew from the docks stopped by to talk with him and we all settled into quiet conversations about simple things.

I’ve always wondered how much our neighbors knew—about who we were and where we came from. Last names are less important here. We are Jorah and Daenerys only, without the family names that might betray our entire sad histories. But they knew Jorah was a knight from the beginning, even though he never breathed a word about it. And yet everyone in the village continued to use the title “Ser” in his presence. 

I know why…that strength of bearing is impossible to hide. Honor and nobility are not something you can fake. Some men are born to it and Jorah was one of them. He was a knight, a protector, a guardian. He didn’t know how to be anything else. No matter how our lives had played out, I knew in the depths of my soul that he would have remained _my_ knight, my protector and my guardian until the day he died. 

But in the path we had chosen he became a husband and father too. And I preferred it that way.

Indeed, as I looked over at him, speaking with those men, I was struck again by the man I’d chosen to spend my life with and to have children with. 

I was more in love with him now than I’d ever been. The glimmer of that same love was present the first night I risked kissing him. Maybe even before, as we spoke of home in a dusty Dothraki tent, long ago and in a place far from this. But with his son resting peacefully in my arms, in the breezy beauty of a seaside wedding that offered only tokens of love and affection, I was _flooded_ with the rest of it, his enduring love for me and the children, all those quiet moments we’d shared and continued to share. 

The music from down below hummed in my ears pleasantly and I suddenly found myself caught in the act of staring, as Jorah was no longer paying attention to his discussion with the other men, too busy catching my eye with that crooked grin I adored but saw so rarely.

“Forgive me, boys,” he made excuses to the sailors, who took no offense, seeing his aim immediately. He took a couple steps back to me, bending close to my ear and lowering his voice to the tones reserved for me, and me alone, in the deepest of hours of night, “Do you want to dance, _Khaleesi_?” 

I did. I hadn’t planned on dancing at this wedding as we never danced. There was never any occasion for it and I don’t know that I’d ever been taught any formal steps. But gods _yes_ , I wanted to dance. I wanted to dance with Jorah.

“Rasha, would you…?” I asked, but she was already reaching for Aemon. I passed the baby into her willing arms. Sweet-natured as his sister, Aemon didn’t protest and just settled against her while keeping an eye on Jeorgianna and the sparks of flame that erupted during the magician’s latest trick.

Jorah took my hand and led me down the stone steps. He twirled me gracefully into the circle of dancers and I found that it didn’t matter that I’d never danced before. The eastern music was transporting and his arms around me were strong and sure, guiding me at every step. 

_Never let me go_ …

At the end of the song, I jumped into his arms impulsively, embracing him tightly, in that warm manner that I hoped he knew meant that there was no place I’d rather be. My eyes slipped close and my breath escaped softly, as I tightened my grip around his broad shoulders. He knew. His arms encircled my waist and gathered me close, our cheeks pressed against each other for a long moment before he finally put me down again. 

I was healthily flushed and impossibly happy as we returned from the dance floor, keeping Jorah’s hand in both of mine, as we spoke sweet nonsense to each other on our way back up the stone steps.

Jeorgianna had returned to our table, with another treasure for Aemon’s inspection. She brought him a feather this time—white as snow on one side, black as coal on the other. And Rasha was with them, so there was nothing to fear.

But there were two men hovering near Rasha and the children who had not been present on the terrace before. They weren’t village men and I’d never seen either one of them before in my life. When Jorah caught sight of the strangers, I felt his whole body tense and his steps slow. I looked up at his face, so carefree and cheerful only a few moments before, to see his expression darken by degrees.

An unknown fear clutched at my heart and I briefly tightened my grip on Jorah’s hand. Ever reassuring, he gave a squeeze in response. But when we approached the men, I noticed that he positioned himself between me and them and his hand twitched at his side, itching for a sword that wasn’t there. 

One of the strangers was drinking copious amounts of wine and smirking in a way that stank of bitterness. He was bearded and dressed in traveling clothes. And he was a dwarf, less than a foot taller than Jeorgianna. The other man was normal height, but bald and smarmy, dressed in long, eastern-styled robes that carried an air of secrets and whispers. 

“Ser Jorah Mormont of Bear Island,” the bald man greeted too formally, with too much confidence. It wasn’t a question. He knew who he addressed.

The dwarf raised his wine glass as a sort of cheers as the other man bowed low, in a manner that seemed slightly less than sincere. The bald man continued, “Oh, my lord, we’ve been looking for you for some time.”


	7. The Spider & The Imp - Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to split this chapter into two parts because of a necessary POV shift. Be back soon with Part II :)
> 
> Also, I’m blown away by the lovely response to this fluffy fic. Blown. Away. You guys are seriously the best readers a writer-girl could ask for <3

**_Jorah_ **

If I’d been armed, I’m afraid I would have slain both of them right there and then, at the wedding feast, before the Spider’s duplicitous tongue had a chance to form the first greeting. 

So perhaps it was for the best that I wasn’t carrying a sword.

My expression must have made my feelings clear however, as Lord Varys, the spymaster of King’s Landing, took a small but deliberate step backwards on the stone terrace after rising from his simpering bow. 

“You see?” the dwarf grabbed another wine bottle from the table and tipped the neck towards his companion, speaking wryly. “I told you he wouldn’t be happy to see us.”

“You’re Tyrion Lannister,” I mentioned darkly, as confident of his identity as Varys had been of mine. I’d never met the youngest Lannister but his reputation was known throughout the Seven Kingdoms. With drink in hand and that smug Lannister sneer fixed upon his face, there was no mistaking him.

With a stubby hand, he twisted the cork from the bottle. It gave a satisfying pop, and he nodded as he poured himself another drink.

“The very man, Mormont,” he confirmed, just as darkly, before amending his words with that same wry tone, “Or half-man, if we’re being precise.”

Behind me, Daenerys had taken the baby back from Rasha’s arms, as Aemon had started crying, either because he sensed the unnatural presence of strangers or because the long day had finally worn him out. Fat, sad tears soon began trailing down the baby’s cheeks. Daenerys soothed him with low, maternal tones and bounced him softly in her arms, bringing him close and rubbing slow circles against his back to calm his cries. 

I felt little hands against my pant leg and looked down to find Jeorgianna, daisy-crowned and crow’s feather still in hand, peeking out from behind me cautiously. She was curious and unsure of what to make of the men I spoke with. She looked up at me with those wide blue eyes, color so near my own, and I read the question written there easily enough. 

_Who are they, Papa?_

_Strangers, love. Just strangers._

Her intelligent eyes slid away from mine to meet the dwarf’s with measured interest. He was nearly her size but a grown man, bearded and wine-soaked. She kept hold of my pant leg but didn’t cower. She knew they weren’t to be trusted but she didn’t know why. My little girl was suspicious, curious, wondering…but she wasn’t afraid. And why should she be? Bears and dragons should have no fear of spiders or snakes.

But the pride swelling in my chest couldn’t banish away all my more unsettled feelings. Which, I hated to admit it even to myself, included fear. Fear at how they’d found us, fear at what they might want.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, of both of them, my voice low, a rasping growl even to my own ears. My right hand absently came to rest on Jeorgianna’s shoulder. 

Varys was now looking at Jeorgianna, at her blue eyes, at her silver-blonde hair. His own eyes narrowed and his mouth was set in a firm line, struck silent, if only for a moment. The gears in his head were spinning, as always, and then his eyes were flickering to Daenerys and the baby as well. He made the connections in his head quickly. He started nodding to himself slowly, the elusive gaps of however many years of rumor suddenly made clear by this single moment in time. 

Still, he looked surprised and I was satisfied in the knowledge that his little birds, whichever crafty ones had led him to the Jade Sea, knew much less than he would have liked.

Tyrion seemed more concerned with the bottom of his wine glass than anything else but a shared glance between the two yielded a raised eyebrow from Varys and a shrug from Tyrion.

“Ser Jorah, Lord Tyrion and I have traveled a long way,” Varys tread carefully, giving a cursory glance over the festivities that surrounded us. “But this is, perhaps, not the ideal place to discuss the news we bring with us.” 

The buzzing hum of guests surrounded us—all talking, laughing, feasting and drinking. The happy shouts of children running and playing together and the voices of men and women mixed with the evening calls of whippoorwills and crickets in the vineyard. The musicians on the veranda below were playing another song, whimsical and lilting, with a melody popular on both sides of the sea. I’d heard this same song as a boy on Bear Island, whistled by sailors and hummed by the servant girls who served in my father’s house. 

Hearing that familiar song, a part of me wished I could just seize Daenerys’s hand, pull her back into the dance and stay there this time, forever, the rest fading away in a blissful haze of music and dancing and the solid feel of Daenerys, held safely in my arms.

I met Varys’s stare, gauging the man’s purpose. There was nothing to discover as the man kept his secrets too well. The eunuch’s clean-shaven face was deceptively cherubic and his true motivations were impossible to decipher. It would take a far more clever man than me to know what the Spider wanted without him saying it outright.

I gave up trying, breaking my stare with Varys to turn and meet Daenerys’s gaze instead. She continued rocking the baby, with gentle “shhhhs” whispered at Aemon’s ear. Aemon’s cries were quieter now, just little hiccups and mumbles against his mother’s throat, as he tangled his tiny fingers in the long strands of her hair. 

Her eyes searched mine. She didn’t know these men but she recognized the danger, the western accents and the way I was reacting to their sudden, unexpected appearance.

_What do they want?_

“We mean you no harm, Ser,” Varys promised, as if his promises meant anything. As if his little birds hadn’t been dispatched for murder and mayhem a hundred times over. A thousand times. With his glance again lingering on Jeorgianna, noting her age, the distinct Targaryen color of her hair, he added, as a nod to truths he now confirmed for himself, “…nor any of your household.”

The man’s sly manner nettled me. Deeply. As did his presence here, on the wrong side of the Narrow Sea. And I knew some of it was due to my own shame, never to be shaken off completely, of the connection I shared with this man. And of a short message sent from the dusty road all those years ago, the simple but damning words written in my own hand.

_The princess is with child._

No, I hadn’t forgiven myself for that. And wouldn’t, no matter how many times Daenerys begged me to try. I’d _never_ forgive myself for that. The memory stung like an open wound, with the Spider’s appearance like fresh salt raked over it.

Varys uncrossed his arms, bringing his hands out of the folds of those robes to raise them before me as a sign of submission, showing that he carried no weapons, neither steel dagger nor poisonous draught. The expression on my face remained unchanged. 

Lord Varys sighed, complaining to Tyrion, almost rhetorically, “No one ever trusts the eunuch.” 

“I can’t imagine why,” Tyrion’s response was laced with wine-flavored sarcasm. 

I opened my mouth to speak—harsh, blunt words that I probably would have regretted immediately. But Daenerys had shifted Aemon in her grasp, his slight weight balanced in one arm. She reached out the other, to touch my elbow gently, knowing what I would say and restraining my sharper words. I turned to her, seeing her give a short shake of her head. 

“Not here,” she said to me, casting a quick glance at Rasha, whose features were lined with concern. The tension in the air between us and the strangers was palpable. The scene she saw unfolding seemed primed to spoil the merriment of her daughter’s wedding celebration. 

No, there was no reason to continue this here. They had found us, in any case. There was no running from it now. 

I let out a long breath. The sun was sinking into the sea. Twilight had fallen while I wasn’t watching. The night air was crisp, cooler than what we usually experienced in this part of the world. I couldn’t blame a change of weather on them, but Tyrion and Varys had brought a chill with them, nonetheless. The idea didn’t improve my mood any.

But I nodded slowly, the gentle pressure of Daenerys’s touch acting as the source of both my greatest strength and my greatest fears, all at once. Jeorgianna too, still leaning against me, watchful eyes darting between the strangers, her fingers curling in the fabric of my surcoat—oh, I was still tempted to strangle these men and be done with it, mistrusting their presence, their words and their very existence.

Honestly, I’d rather cast them into the sea than listen to what they had to say. 

Daenerys was right. This wasn’t the time, this wasn’t the place. I answered Varys, finally, my somber tone promising consequences if mischief was their aim, “Come back to the house and we’ll discuss your business in Essos.”


	8. The Spider & the Imp - Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, I know. Tyrion is probably the _last_ person we want to hear from right now. But I thought his perspective might be fun. You can be the judge.
> 
> And wow, this went longer than I expected (kinda dialogue-heavy too—Varys is such a chatterbox) but it’s necessary, I swear. You’ll see. All roads lead to more fluffiness of the fluffiest variety.
> 
> Speaking of fluff, ummmm, so @salzrand has done a couple illustrations for Chs. 1 & 2 of this fic because she’s THE BEST. And like, I SERIOUSLY CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF HER JORAH/DANY ART SO I’M KINDA FREAKING OUT but also I’ve embedded the drawings in the text and go back and see for yourselves because just #mmmmyesplease #<3
> 
> Next chapter coming soon! :)

**_Tyrion_ **

The little girl looked just like her mother. My Gods, the resemblance was uncanny. Except those eyes, of course. Her eyes were as blue as the sea under a winter sky, the same shade as the glowering northern knight she called “Papa.”

We’d travelled from Illyrio Mopatis’s palace in Pentos, through Myr and Volantis, then Slaver’s Bay and still further East, following whispers, having heard strange rumors from Varys’s furthest flung birds…of a Westerosi knight who once rode with the horse-lords and who now lived and worked as a fisherman at the edge of the Jade Sea. 

It was an unlikely story but no more than any of the others. 

Rumors are rumors. They grow like tangled weeds where the truth is uncertain. And no one had heard from Jorah Mormont in years, not since he stopped sending Varys messages, not since the Targaryen princess escaped Robert’s assassination attempt and went missing once again. 

But there were competing stories about Ser Jorah—some said he’d rejoined the Golden Company, others that he’d become a hermit in the Bone Mountains and, still others, that he was long dead, together with Daenerys Targaryen, both executed by the horde after Khal Drogo’s untimely demise years ago. 

Varys had heard the last story straight from a Dothraki bloodrider, or rather, straight from the slave-translator standing beside him, head bent, hands in chains. The braided and bearded warrior spit in the sand at the mention of both names, damning Jorah the Andal and the Silver Khaleesi to the dusty, barren steppes of the horse-lords’ deepest hells, for they were foreigners who had brought the khalasar only dishonor and shame.

It was a sore subject for the bloodrider. Khal Drogo had made himself weak for the Targaryen princess and paid a death price for his trouble, as she handed the khal over to a witch and used her bear knight as a shield against any who might question otherwise.

“I killed the Andal myself,” the Dothraki had claimed, smugly and with an arrogance that rivaled the hill tribes of the Vale. I was reminded of Shagga, Son of Dolf, who had gleefully promised to cut off my manhood and feed it to the goats at least three times a day while Bronn and I knew him.

Horrible man. I can’t say that I’ve drunk to his health since parting ways.

“Of course, you did,” I remember muttering to the Dothraki warrior, sardonically, garnering a warning look from the eunuch. Varys’s appreciation of my quips had grown thinner since landing on the Eastern shores.

The bloodrider continued his tale, taking too much pleasure in relating a gruesome story that honestly seemed a little too skewed in his favor to be true, “The Silver Khaleesi was cut into a hundred pieces and fed to our horses. The foreign whore got what she deserved.”

 _Or not._ I thought now, while standing in the front hall of the woman’s house, baby in her arms, child at her skirts, watching her briefly lace her fingers through Ser Jorah’s before reaching up and pressing a soft kiss against his mouth.

No, Daenerys Targaryen was anything but dead.

“I’ll put the children to bed,” she mentioned to her bear lord, giving Varys and I another uneasy glance. It was one of many. Our presence here was not welcome. By either of them. 

While I couldn’t hold their suspicions against them, I felt some offense just the same. But I’d been in a bad mood for some time. Forced marriages, rat-infested prisons and a long trip across the sea by wooden crate will do that to a person.

Watching the quiet scene before me, I felt something else too. Something like…envy, if I’m being honest? It was a hard feeling to express but that came close enough. I was far from home and my sister was currently hunting me like a dog for crimes both real and imagined. And why shouldn’t she? My father’s blood, and Shae’s, was fresh enough on my hands that I could still smell its acrid flavor.

And it’s not as if life had been sweet beforehand. Joffrey’s tantrums, Cersei’s scheming, the Starks’ rebellion, Jaime’s capture, Stannis’s assault on the capital, a breezy sky cell in the Vale with only Mord for company…it had been years since I’d had a moment to breathe. 

I’d felt like an exile in my own country. And here, on the other side of the world, I had thought to find fellow exiles to commiserate with. Their pasts were no cheerier than mine, the list of their enemies no shorter, and they hadn’t been home since before Jon Arryn died.

But Jorah Mormont and Daenerys Targaryen didn’t have the hollow, miserable look of exiles at all. Before they caught sight of us at that seaside wedding, they’d been speaking to each other on the terrace stairs, intimately, quietly, both grinning like children. It was only our appearance that brought them out of the spell.

A spell that said they didn’t _care_ to go home again. A spell that said their home was here.

I felt myself caught up in it, fixated by it, a casual observer to domestic tranquility that I had convinced myself no longer existed. And yet… 

The baby was already asleep at the Targaryen woman’s shoulder and the little girl’s eyes, though still following the movements of both Varys and I with interest, were heavy-lidded. She reached up one small fist to rub the sleep away from her eyes, unsuccessfully.

Her father bent down to her level, opening his arms wide for what looked like a nightly ritual.

“Goodnight, maid,” he said in a gentle voice, before kissing her cheek soundly.

“Goodnight, Papa,” she answered sweetly, arms circling his neck in a brief but tight embrace, before she dutifully followed her mother upstairs.

Varys and I were shadows here, I realized. Shadows over a sunrise. And, for a moment, I nearly regretted coming at all. Or would have, if Mormont weren’t turning that suspicious glower my way again. Again, envy and indignation pricked at my heartstrings and I reminded myself that I didn’t spend a month crammed into a crate just to be glared at by a miserable northerner.

“Well?” Ser Jorah prodded, straightening up and turning his full attention back to Varys and I, holding a powerful stance that said he’d like no better than to see us gone. Sooner rather than later.

“Aren’t you going to offer us a drink or something?” I wondered, facetiously. I couldn’t help myself. It’s my basic nature to be this way. And to have a drink in my hand. “Or is hospitality dead in Essos?”

“I think you’ve had enough,” the disgraced knight’s reply held just a hint of snark. I was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t think the Mormonts were capable of that sort of thing. 

I shrugged, hoping to dig at him with my next comment, “Your father’s manners as host are a bit friendlier than yours, my lord.”

“What do you know of my father?” Ser Jorah’s eyes flickered.

Oh, I dug well.

“I visited the Old Bear at Castle Black some years back,” I answered, just a little softer now, as he wasn’t the only one who enjoyed a fraught relationship with his father. 

_You are no son of mine_ …my father’s ghostly voice, all spite and hatred, echoed in my head at every hour.

To drown Tywin Lannister’s commanding voice out, I continued pointedly, “Jeor Mormont is _generous_ with his ale.” 

“Generous with his advice too, Ser Jorah,” Varys interjected quickly, giving me that same look he used when we spoke with the Dothraki bloodrider. Always to the task at hand, never to the drink—it was no way to live.

Varys explained further, “That’s one of the reasons we’ve come, Ser. The wildlings, led by Mance Rayder, made an attack on Castle Black…”

“My father…?” Jorah Mormont’s stance lost a little more of its defiance.

“He held them off,” Varys nodded simply, relating the news of his little birds. “Although Mance’s numbers were far greater and his army likely would have overwhelmed the crows eventually, no matter how valiantly they fought.”

“What do you mean “would have”?” Ser Jorah asked. The sheer relief he felt at the news his father was still alive was written across his weathered face.

“The battle went to Stannis Baratheon,” Varys continued. “After his defeat at the Blackwater, Stannis rode north with his men at the behest of his red priestess and they now stand at Castle Black. And, from what I’ve been told, your father has somehow managed to broker peace between the wildlings and Stannis.”

“What kind of peace?”

“Mance Rayder now bends the knee to Stannis,” Varys said bluntly. “They ride for Winterfell as one force and plan to take it back from the Boltons.” 

“Why would Stannis care about Winterfell?” Ser Jorah wondered, shaking his head, not believing a word of it. He looked at me this time, seeking confirmation of the obvious, “His aims are further south. He wishes to depose the Lannisters.”

“And still does,” I allowed, knowing that Stannis would never give up his quest for the throne currently held by my youngest nephew. The man was a _damn_ machine. I couldn’t stand him. I smirked, “But we beat him once. I doubt he wishes to try again so soon.”

“You set the bay on fire and burned honorable men alive. I’m not sure I’d call that a victory, Lord Tyrion,” the knight’s tone betrayed his inherent distaste for my methods.

“It worked though,” I replied, with bite. I reminded him, smartly, “Tricks and spies have their uses.”

Ser Jorah didn’t appreciate the reminder. His clenched fist said as much. The word “spy” was a sour one for him to swallow. 

Varys gave a long-suffering sigh, growing impatient with my not-so-subtle attempts to poke the bear.

“Yes, yes, but it’s all water under the bridge. Or wildfire under the bridge, as it please you both,” the eunuch grumbled. “Stannis’s eyes are fixed north. He is taking back Winterfell for Jon Snow, the Stark bastard, as he wants to install him as the Warden of the North and rally the banners.”

“The northerners are tired of fighting wars in the South,” Jorah said wisely, knowing his brethren’s hearts well enough, despite his years away. “We were tired of it even before Rhaegar was defeated at the Trident.”

“Stannis isn’t asking them to fight in the South. At least not now,” Varys shook his head ruefully. His shrewd eyes begged Ser Jorah to understand the gravity of his next words, “Their destination is _North_. Every sword that can be spared is going North, at the Lord Commander’s request.”

Ser Jorah didn’t ask why. And yet, he knew. 

I could see on his face. He knew exactly why his father would call the forces of Westeros to the Wall. That surprised me, though it probably shouldn’t have. He was a northerner by birth, after all. The things those people believe in…

I still wasn’t sure I believed in any of it. Grumpkins, snarks and white walkers? These were the villains from fairy tales that I’d been told as a boy in Casterly Rock. Any rational man dismissed them as old stories told around the camp fires of our ancestors, to keep their children from wandering off into the woods at night.

If Cersei knew I was even _considering_ the idea as truth, my sister would laugh mercilessly, endlessly, spilling her wine in her mirth. Before ordering my execution, of course.

But Jeor Mormont was not a man to be swayed by children’s stories. And Stannis Baratheon was as logical and unromantic a man as every lived. And together they were calling the whole country to stand and fight a massive incursion of dead men.

Dead men fashioned for one purpose. To destroy every living thing from the Frozen Shore to Dorne. 

It still sounded like nonsense to my ears. But I would be spending the winter in Pentos, just to be safe. 

“And what does this have to do with us?” Ser Jorah’s words might have been taken as in line with my own thoughts. Here, at the edge of the Jade Sea, he and his pretty wife could ignore the dangers of the West, as they would never reach these shores.

_Are you absolutely sure about that, Tyrion?_

But there was conflict in Jorah Mormont’s voice. I could hear it easily enough. This news rattled him and he would be thinking on it for some time. He took it far more seriously than either Varys or I, who honestly, were already planning for the aftermath.

Varys admitted it freely, “Nothing, my lord. At least, not yet. But you must understand…if Stannis is successful and if his victories in the North continue, he will be lauded a hero. Avenging Ned Stark, liberating the North, saving the realm? They will write songs about him that will be sung until your grandchildren’s grandchildren are old and grizzled.”

“And why shouldn’t they, Lord Varys?” 

“Because Stannis Baratheon is a _plague_ on the Seven Kingdoms,” Varys’s mask broke on these words. The eunuch’s cool demeanor was not infallible. And there was one thing that could always drive him to show the rage he kept hidden away, rage borne of the fire that had consumed those parts of him that it wasn’t polite to mention. “A red priestess stands by his side. If he triumphs, she triumphs. And I will not rest until I know the realm is safe from her clutches.”

“The realm is in the clutches of Tywin Lannister, if I’m not mistaken,” Ser Jorah argued, turning to me once again.

_Ah, news travels a little slower than wooden crate, I suppose…_

“My father is dead,” I related the news dully, flatly, without emotion. There was a smirk on my lips but it was a bitter, bitter thing. “Murdered by a dwarf that he was loathe to call son.”

Well, that news surprised the man. His posture relaxed and his lips parted, on a host of unasked questions. None of which had easy answers.

I shrugged my shoulders, “Why do you think I’m in Essos, Mormont?”

“And Cersei is not her father,” Varys spoke quickly, unwilling to veer into other subjects. He folded his arms up into the folds of his robes, leaning back and speaking with the knowledge of a spymaster once again, “She has little sense for the people’s wants and desires. She’s alienating the Tyrells as we speak. Their alliance is tenuous, at best, and headed for a bad end. Lady Olenna will remove her house’s support at the slightest hint of danger. All it will take is a raven from the North, heralding Stannis’s victories and he will have the hearts of the people to command.”

“ _If_ he’s victorious,” Ser Jorah stressed the word. “Do either of you understand what they will be fighting at the Wall? Do you understand why my father requests _every_ sword? You underestimate this danger…”

“Perhaps,” Varys replied. “But I’ve seen much, my lord, and I know the resilience of survival and how it grows, even in barren places. But if it must be had at the price of magic, it must be ground into dust.”

Varys’s hatred of all magic rivalled Cersei’s hatred of me. His tone was not simpering now, but firm as steel.

“That still doesn’t answer my question,” the knight said.

“What is that, my lord?”

“You didn’t come all this way to trade stories. Why did you come looking for me?”

“We thought you might have information on Daenerys Targaryen. If she still lived, where she might be…that sort of thing,” Varys replied with a huff of wry laughter on the edge of his voice. He mentioned, understatedly, “It appears we were right to seek you out.”

“You know, I always wondered what had happened to make you refuse that pardon and stop sending those messages,” I added, slyly. I tipped my head, bringing the image of that dragon-girl’s beautiful face to mind easily. “Seeing her now, I can understand it.”

“Watch yourself, dwarf,” the bear knight’s threats came back with a vengeance.

“Lord Tyrion means no offense, my lord,” Varys smoothed out the rougher edges of the conversation so seamlessly. But there was a tense moment of silence between us.

Varys didn’t let the silence stand for long. He filled it by finally stating our purpose, plainly, “We wish to reinstate Daenerys Targaryen to the throne of her father. We wish to sponsor her war against the Lannisters and we have friends with deep enough pockets to do it. She’s the rightful heir and we believe the people would rally around her, given the chance.”

“You’re a Lannister,” Ser Jorah stated the obvious, eyes meeting mine.

“Yes, I’m _very_ aware,” I replied. “But my sister wants me dead and I’d rather kill her first, all things being equal.”

“And you would have killed her," his gaze turned on Varys. "You would have murdered Daenerys and her child.” Ser Jorah’s voice had gone so dangerously low on those words that I wondered if he even said them aloud.

“The past is…regrettable,” Varys agreed. “But it’s the future we must look towards. Always the future, Ser Jorah.”

Ser Jorah was shaking his head. Neither quite wryly, nor quite in earnest. He mulled much over in his head, pensively. But I had a feeling his thoughts were on his father and the gathering at the Wall, rather than Varys’s petition.

“I don’t speak for Daenerys,” he answered bluntly, with a finality of tone that was fiercely irritating.

But then there was a flutter of movement on the stairs above us, and my gaze was drawn to meet the violet eyes of the silver-haired woman herself. 

“Jorah doesn’t speak for me,” Daenerys confirmed softly, rising from where she was perched at the top of the stairs, with a grim look on her face. 

How long had she been listening to us? Daenerys descended the stairs gracefully, her restless fingers trailing along the railing. She joined Ser Jorah at the bottom of the stairs, those fingers looping at his wrist absently. 

They were a striking pair to look at, regal even. Ser Jorah had inherited his father’s strength of presence. And Daenerys was a beautiful woman, there was no denying that. Varys had been right to seek her out, I realized, finding myself enchanted by her mere presence. 

After she took her place by her bear knight’s side, she pulled her eyes away from mine, meeting Jorah’s gaze instead, and added with a wistful, affectionate look on her comely face, “But he does know what I would say.”

“And what is that, my lady?” I heard myself ask, honestly, truthfully, without my usual medley of sarcasm or wit, completely bewitched by the Targaryen princess, despite myself.

Daenerys and Ser Jorah were exchanging deep looks between them, speaking without voices. 

“I will never be Queen of the Seven Kingdoms,” she answered with strength and conviction. “I will never sit on the Iron Throne. I am not the woman you’re looking for.” 

The affection in her expression melted away as she turned a steely, dragon-maid gaze upon both Varys and I, speaking in a voice that betrayed her royal bloodlines and echoed the cadence of the glorious-but-fearsome queen she might have been. 

With a fire-and-blood oath, Daenerys promised, “And if ever you come to our house again and try to use my family for your own ambitions, I’ll have Jorah throw your heads in the harbor.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, butterfly effect, riiiiight? You change one thing (Jeor Mormont’s still alive) and suddenly, you start thinking how that might change the course of the original timeline. 
> 
> Here’s my theory. I liked Jon Snow up until Melisandre brought him back from the dead (because, like, she forgot to bring back his personality...?). In the early seasons, I thought they did a good job of showing a boy trying to be a man (and even succeeding sometimes) and loved his complicated bond with the wildlings because it worked as such a great counterweight to the R+L = J reveal to come later. The trueborn king cavorting with those who adamantly refused to bend to a king? Perfect irony. 
> 
> Buuuuut he was really still a kid-playing-at-Lord-Commander during the Stannis/Mance showdown and I just don’t think he had the gravitas (or height) to make it work. Whereas, I could totally see Jeor Mormont saying something like “don’t-be-a-bloody-fool-Mance-the-zombies-are-coming-bend-the-fucking-knee-and-then-work-it-out-later” because yo, Jeor Mormont’s got a voice that makes you listen.
> 
> Jon? – not so much.
> 
> Anyway, that’s where we’re going from here bigger-plot-in-Westeros-wise. Stannis and Mance’s combined forces will take back Winterfell from Ramsay (and none of that Shireen-burning nonsense allowed in this fic, thank you very much). Jon will be appointed Warden of the North and reunite with Sansa. Ravens will be sent, banners will be called. *checks watch* Bran and Meera should be arriving at the Wall right on schedule. All will meet back at Castle Black for their date with the Zombie Apocalypse. 
> 
> Which will be the BIG EVENT of the age in this story because, sorry, I don't throw out 7 seasons of build-up and foreshadowing quite as easily as D&D ;) Also, no dragons means the Wall stays in one piece so the battle against the Night King will happen at Castle Black.
> 
> As for Jorah and Dany’s role in the wars to come…well, #staytuned, m'dears.


	9. Cold Winds Rising

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To my European friends/readers, here’s hoping you’re sent some cool summer breezes soon. Seriously, those temps make me want to find a pool of ice water and jump in it. In the meantime, try not to melt. #WinterIsComing #sometime #likemonthsfromnow #butyougetit
> 
> As always, thank you for all the kudos/comments/love! <33333

**_Daenerys_ **

We went down to the beach near dusk, to watch the sunset. 

When the tide was low, the beach stretched out for miles in either direction, all sea and sky and sand. And not another soul on it but us. The western sky was awash with color after a string of chilly, cloudy days all in a row. Those same clouds still hovered overhead but cleared at the horizon, where the underside of the sky was painted in vibrant and dramatic shades of red, orange and violet. 

“Jeorgianna, keep Aemon away from the water. I didn’t bring him a change of clothes and it’s cold out here tonight,” I called after her as she took her brother’s hand, leading him further down the beach, to the long swatches of black stones and tall reeds that grew beneath the sheer, white bluffs. 

In the months since Lord Varys and Tyrion Lannister made their visit, Aemon had learned to walk. He was so eager, so ready to join his sister. His tottering steps were still slow and unsteady but Jeorgianna didn’t mind waiting for him. 

“I will, Mama,” she answered me without turning back. Her other hand held two empty jars by their glass lips. Down by the reeds, a swarm of fireflies blinked out of the dusky light and she had plans to catch one. Aemon was only too happy to follow her wherever she wished to lead, taking part in whatever adventures she chose for them.

My children loved each other fiercely. And despite the chill in the evening air, my heart swelled with warmth at the thought, as I’d never known such a love with my own brother. I had been Aemon once, following Viserys around so closely, begging to play whatever games he would be willing to make up for us. 

But too often, I remember the sneering shake of his silver head, his irritated scowl of impatience. “Dany, I’m busy”, he’d say as he brushed past me and disappeared into his chambers, barely waiting for my fingers to escape the stinging bite of a slamming door. 

When I was very little, before I knew any better, I’d knock and plead until the door opened once again. And then I’d regret it immediately.

_Now you’ve woken the dragon, little sister_ …my brother’s eyes would bore into mine, flashing with the dragon’s anger.

The memories of my brother were nearly as cold and sharp as the air tonight. I shivered on its strange chill, pulling my shawl closer around my shoulders and adding a piece of kindling to the campfire that I’d been coaxing to life for the last quarter hour. My hands lingered on the hot stones circling the ash bed, fingers curling very near the licking flames themselves, but I felt little more than a glimmer of its heat.

Over the years, I’d given up trying to decipher why my skin was so impervious to flame. I could hold a blacksmith’s red-hot poker against my cheek and not leave a mark, I could plunge my hands into boiling water and not feel a thing. 

The golden crown that Khal Drogo had granted Viserys proved that it wasn’t necessarily a family trait. But I wondered if Rhaegar, or my father, the Mad King, could also hold their hands to flames without flinching, without feeling anything.

_Burn them all_ …they say my father repeated those words for hours before Jaime Lannister plunged a sword in his back. Did he not fear the wildfire because he knew it wouldn’t consume him? Or was he just a crazy man, tortured by the many voices in his head?

“I don’t know,” Jorah admitted, quite a few years ago, after I asked him the question plainly. He was stunned and fumbled for words at the time, as he’d come back from the docks to find me burning cut weeds in the garden…with my hands wrist-deep in a vat of fire. 

He had run forward and snatched me away from the flames. The fear in his eyes had matched Irri’s almost exactly—his blue, hers brown. And then the same awestruck wonder, as I showed him my unmarked hands. He shook his head, dumbfounded, “I’ve never read or heard…not even the ancient Targaryens would have…”

His words died away as he finally took my hand, thumb running over the soft palm up to my wrist, relief breaking over his features as he stroked the unburnt skin beneath. Then he raised my hand and kissed my palm and made me promise not to make a habit of throwing my hands into flames, no matter how kind the fire seemed to treat me.

He was worried the power would rub off eventually, as if it were paint peeling off a hull. I did as he asked, though I knew this wasn’t something that would ever fade away. The blood in my veins was laced with something unexplainable and fiery, although I’m not sure I cared for it very much.

Perhaps in a different life, it would have served me well. But here, I had no need for any strange immunity to fire. If anything, it dulled my sense of warmth and made any hint of cold unbearable. Like a lizard always seeking the sun, afraid the shadows would turn its skin with ice. The campfire was paltry relief and certainly didn’t have the heat to banish away the chill of a night like this.

Only one thing could accomplish that. Or one man anyway…

Having searched up beyond the wrack line of high tide, Jorah returned to me with more driftwood, all sun-bleached, bone-dry and ready for the fire. He braced the longer sticks against his shin and broke them into smaller pieces, dropping the kindling in a pile beside me.

“It’s certainly a night for a fire, isn’t it?” I muttered, eyes on the flames, hands briskly rubbing at my shoulders. We’d been coming down to the beach for years. A thousand summer nights spent in this same spot, on the soft sand, with the crash of white-capped waves echoing down the length of the sea strand. 

But this wasn’t summer weather.

Jorah nodded silently as he sat down near me on the tight-weave quilt I’d laid on the sand. He was such a tall man. His long legs stretched out before him, with one knee half-raised. If he thought I didn’t notice the grimness playing at his lips or the distracted look in his eyes, he was being foolish. Ever since the Spider and the Imp had deigned to grace us with their unwanted presence, there’d been something on his mind. 

Something cold, something distant. Ancient and murderous. 

I’d pressed him one night and he told me some stories. Old stories from Bear Island and further North. About the things that live beyond the Wall in Westeros. Not the wildlings, the giants or the direwolves. Not even ice spiders the size of horses. But pale-skinned, blue-eyed men. Or things that looked like men. Monsters that wake in winter. Prophesies…and the end of the world. 

The dire reasons that his father and Stannis Baratheon would be calling all of Westeros to stand at Castle Black.

I reminded him that there was an ocean between us and Westeros. And he nodded at that too. But just as grimly, just as unsure. He was conflicted over the news and I knew it. I knew what he was thinking too, what he hadn’t yet said aloud.

His father was calling every sword to the Wall. His father needed _every_ sword.

I added another piece of kindling to the fire and found myself shivering again as I did it. The shivers claimed my whole body. Jorah noticed and reached for me.

“You’re cold, Daenerys,” he chided, smoothly pulling me back from the edge of the fire to rest against him, his arms slipping under my breast to lock me in his steady grasp. My hands slid up his strong forearms, crossing over themselves, as I lowered my head, turning my face into the familiar warmth and closeness of my bear’s embrace. 

He nuzzled his lips against the nape of my neck. I turned further into his caress, raising my chin by a degree, allowing his kisses to trail along my jawline until I met his mouth with mine, the stubble of his beard brushing across my cheek and then the tender edge of my lips pleasantly. The layer of frost gathering around my heart began melting away. In very little time, I felt warm again from the inside out. 

_Warm like the sun, warm like the southern seas._

Jorah conjured a fire in me with little effort. 

With a small, sweet sigh, I relaxed against his broad chest, sinking into the embrace, welcoming the lock-hold feel of those strong arms tight around me, content to stay within them until the end of time. I rested my head back against his shoulder as we remained there, together, silently, watching our children try to catch those fireflies further down the beach.

Jeorgianna was infinitely patient and willing to wait for the fireflies to come to her. She stood very still, only her eyes moving to watch the insects’ humming paths of flight, as a flicker of lights surrounded her. Aemon didn’t have his sister’s patience but he made a valiant attempt at each lightning bug that came anywhere near him, jumping up and swinging the jar high above his tousled head. His reflexes weren’t quite up to the task yet and the swing of the jar was about three seconds too slow every time.

“You almost got that one, Aemon,” Jeorgianna promised her brother, her encouraging voice echoing up from the base of the bluffs.

“No, I didn’t,” Aemon’s little voice followed, colored by equal parts disappointment and…complete self-awareness.

Watching them, I felt the rumble of Jorah’s laughter deep in his chest and heard the soft sound of his low chuckle at my ear. I loved hearing his laugh. He hadn’t laughed since Tyrion and Varys left, off to make their case to someone more willing to listen. If he didn’t think I noticed its absence, then he was being foolish again.

“Jeorgianna’s caught one,” Jorah mused, as his left hand dropped to my knees, both curled up and brought to rest against the inside of his leg. He cupped his large hand against my knee cap and lazily began rubbing his thumb over the skin beneath my skirt. 

Indeed, she had caught one…in her own patient way, by letting the little thing land in the jar itself and then slowly screwing the top down before it ever noticed the danger. Aemon clapped his hands merrily, never one for jealousy, and Jeorgianna beamed on her success. As the evening sun fell into the crashing sea behind them, both ran back up the shore to show us their prize.

“Look, Mama…,” Jeorgianna smiled softly, holding the glass jar out for my inspection. Jorah loosened his grip, allowing me to lean forward and take the jar from her outstretched hand. I smiled back, just as softly, and raised the jar up for both Jorah and I to watch the little thing blink and shine, light pulsing faintly in the enclosed glass, before handing it back to her.

“Well done,” Jorah told her, and her smile deepened.

The children then ran off to release their prisoner back to the swarm, and then search for sand dollars in the low tide. The rays of the setting sun fell on them in a shower of orange and gold, turning Jeorgianna’s silver-blonde hair and Aemon’s darker locks almost red, illuminating the ginger highlights inherited from their father.

The sun cast the scene in warm colors but I could still see their breath escape as white puffs in the air every time they spoke. Running up and down the beach likely kept them warm enough but there was no denying the drop in temperature.

Or what it might mean. 

The fire spit and crackled on the kindling, asking for more. Jorah shifted around me, pressing a kiss to the top of my head as he half-rose, one knee bent against the sand, and fixed the fire. I’d never much liked leaving his embrace once in it, as Jorah was all warmth and strength. When he held me in his arms, I felt like nothing else in the world could touch me. 

Unwilling to let go of that feeling tonight, I scooted forward on the quilt and let my hand drift to his hair, running my fingers through the sprinkling of grey at his temples.

The caress was affectionate, but spoke of more. We’d made love on this beach more than once, coming down here in the middle of the night when the humid air blown up from the southern islands made it too hot to sleep. We’d cool off in the water and trade a hundred kisses under the silver sheen of the summer moon. If the children weren’t here, I’d be tempted to whisper a few choice words in his ear that I knew would elicit a crooked grin…followed by wandering hands.

When we got back to the house, I’d see if he was in a similar mood. My northern lord had been far too serious lately and I would do my best to distract his darker thoughts. He’d always done the same for me. 

But then, suddenly, I felt something cold against my cheek. A small, icy sting lingered on my skin. Like a tear, but I wasn’t crying.

No, I was happy. I was _so_ happy. Didn’t the gods understand that?

The same drops of cold fell on Jorah’s hands and his expression was changing again, conflicted, tense, as his eyes were immediately drawn heavenward to those cinder clouds gathered above. 

Down by the bluffs, Jeorgianna and Aemon were wide-eyed and holding their hands out to catch the strange gift of the skies, having discovered something far more exotic than lightning bugs. Something neither one of them had ever seen before in their lives. Shimmering white flakes started falling around us in soft swirls, caught in the sea breeze.

It was snow. There was snow falling on the waves of the Jade Sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cue ominous Ramin Djawadi-flavored music*


	10. Cubs on the Stairs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To summarize my feelings on writing this chapter - *insert gif of Jess from New Girl singing “Surrender” by Cheap Trick* - because that’s pretty much exactly how I deal with my loved ones fighting too ;)
> 
> Next week, I’ll be on the beach with fancy umbrella drinks in my hand (#yum) so I may not have time to post an update—but will definitely be back the week after that. Promise. Please carry on with the Jorah/Dany awesomeness in my absence :)
> 
> P.S. If you haven't already, be sure to flip back to Chapters 3 & 4 for more amazing @salzrand art!! Eeeeeee! Girl’s so talented it makes me want to die (but like in a fluffy, happy, super fangirling, death-by-chocolate-and-raspberry-vodka sort of way) <3 <3 <3

**_Jeorgianna_ **

“…I’m not discussing this with you again,” she stated, with finality. “We’ve had this conversation ten times over. It’s done, it’s finished.”

“It’s far from finished, Daenerys,” he answered, his terse words followed by an exasperated sigh—Mama was trying his patience.

It was a quiet, still night. The sun slipped away an hour ago, shivering beneath a blanket of slate-blue clouds, unused to the chill nipping at its heels. The sea remained calm, its breezes mild, its waves breaking against the shore with no more force than raindrops on a window pane. Even the buzzing crickets and cicadas and sweet-voiced nightingales in my mother’s gardens had gone silent, as if holding their breath with the rest of us. 

For the air was charged with a strange tension. My mother and father were fighting. And they never fought. Not ever. Their hushed voices carried through the house and up the curling staircase, to where Aemon and I sat side by side on the top step of the second-floor landing. We were dressed in our night clothes, my hair in messy braids, Aemon’s stuffed bear clutched against his right side, as we listened intently to the voices below.

“Would you stop and listen to me? For the sake of all that’s holy, please…”

“I told you my feelings on the matter two nights ago, Jorah. And you speak of nothing else. I grow weary of it.”

My mother’s voice held an icy sternness that was unlike her. She didn’t sound like herself. She was too firm, too stubborn, too…cold-blooded, not allowing any of the lilting softness and teasing warmth that usually colored her tone. She was a dragon in that moment, her tongue barely suppressing her more fiery words. 

And I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it at all. 

I’d only heard her use that same tone twice before. The first time was to a street merchant who tried to sell her a string of what he claimed were sapphire-speckled pearls from the Smoking Sea. He spoke Valyrian to his assistant, thinking the ancient language would hide his meaning. But his words were careless, too easily betraying the falseness of his trade. My mother answered the merchant in her native tongue with a steely frown on her face. I don’t know what she said but the merchant turned pale as cream and he never sold goods in the harbor market again. 

The second time was that night she told the strangers from Westeros to get out of the house and never come back again. 

But she never used that voice with my father. Not once that I could remember. 

And Papa’s voice was strained, weary, weighed down with worry and unnamed fears that he hadn’t shared in our hearing.

They were talking about the country across the sea. Westeros—the country my parents were born in. Mama always said the western lands were cursed, sown for too long with salt, storm, blood and conflict. I never had any reason to doubt her and I didn’t care for any western country, anyway. This was our home. With the gardens and the sea and all the rest of it.

Besides, Papa’s tattered books in the front room had a song in them about a girl named Jenny who danced in a ruined tower with all her many ghosts, and that’s all I could think of when I heard the name of Westeros spoken aloud. 

Westeros. Land of our ancestors. Land of the dead.

_Where Jenny would dance with her ghosts_ …I shivered on the lyric. It was cold and hopeless and I hated it.

They’d been talking about Westeros and Castle Black for a week or more. Ever since it turned colder. Ever since it snowed. And they weren’t the only ones. The whole village was talking about snow on these shores, as it was a sight that hadn’t been seen on the Jade Sea in a thousand years. Maybe more. But while everyone else wondered if it was a sign from the gods or marveled at it as a miracle or dismissed it as a whim of the weather, my mother and father spoke of other things. 

Dark and terrible things. Monsters buried in the snow for a thousand years. The whole world covered from top to bottom in snow and ice. Cold, bitter winds that would freeze the sea solid and allow those monsters to cross the waters into the East, eventually spreading over the whole world like a plague. As if they were thick fields of ghost grass, reaching with long, white fingers, intent on choking out everything else. 

They spoke of our grandfather. They spoke of a battle between the living and the dead. A battle Papa felt compelled to join.

But they didn’t talk about those things in front of us. All day they would exchange tense glances and lingering looks, but they waited until we went to bed to say the words their eyes were screaming. And even then, they kept their voices low, hushed up under the gravity of what they discussed. 

Aemon shifted on the step beside me, his knees knocking against mine as he leaned closer, leaning against me, trying to hear what was being said below. The step squeaked softly under his shifting weight. I gave him a strongly-worded look, warning my little brother to be still and stop fidgeting. 

They thought we were asleep and I wanted to keep it that way. 

“Daenerys…,” Papa started again, but she wouldn’t let him finish.

“My answer is the same as before,” Mama replied, muttering the words as she moved around the kitchen. We could hear her familiar footsteps fall across the grey stones, the sound of water splashing against pewter and china, the sound of her hands scrubbing plates clean. When she didn’t want to talk, she kept herself busy.

“Please, _Khaleesi_ …,” my father’s voice was begging her to stop, to _listen_. “If you think I’m doing this to hurt you—”

“I know why you’re doing this,” she snapped her reply, louder than she’d intended. She must have turned on him sharply as his voice stopped short, mid-sentence. 

Her own voice took on a plaintive note, as she continued, this time finally softening her tone by a degree, “I _know_ why you have to join this fight. And I trust you, Jorah. I’ve trusted you since the day we met. But you have to trust me too. And you have to understand, there’s no changing my mind on this. Where you go, we go. I won’t be separated from you. Not now, not ever.”

“You’ll be safer here,” Papa argued, logically and fiercely. “If we’re defeated—”

“Then we’ll suffer the same fate as you,” Mama argued back, just as fiercely. The dragon squared off against the bear and didn’t give an inch. She stressed, “Together. We live together or we die together. I won’t wait here for news that my husband is dead and that winter comes for us all. I won’t watch my children grieve their father and then die in the damned snows anyway. I won’t do it.”

“If anything happens to you or the children, I would never forgive myself,” he breathed those words, painfully.

“I’m not afraid of death, Jorah,” Mama answered firmly. “Your children aren’t either. They’re little bears, brave as their father.”

Aemon turned to me at Mama’s words, his face breaking into a wide grin at the comparison. I nodded, liking it too, but put my finger to my lips, reminding him to keep quiet. They weren’t finished yet. Mama was stubborn but I knew Papa wouldn’t give up so easily. 

“This has nothing to do with being brave,” he continued and I knew he was shaking his head, ruefully, pleading with her to relent. “It has everything to do with keeping you safe.”

“I’m safer with you. I’ve _always_ been safer with you beside me,” she answered, leaving no room for doubt. “I haven’t felt afraid, not for one moment, since the day you came into my life. Do you understand?”

“You put too much faith in me…”

“Where else would you have me put it?”

“Do you want me to beg, Daenerys?” his tone sounded so tortured and I knew his expression must reflect the misery pressed into those words. This affected my mother, although she wouldn’t change her mind. But she wouldn’t allow him to stay in pain either. Not for her sake. Not for ours. We heard her move, her footsteps crossing the stone floor once again. Her voice fell a note lower, gentler, as she must have gone to him, taken his hand or slipped into his embrace, as she so often did. 

“Don’t beg. Please don’t,” she whispered, so quietly that Aemon nudged me, pulling on the fabric of my nightgown to see if I’d heard. I put my finger to my lips again, more insistently. Mama was still talking. She asked, “Truth now. Could you stand the thought of an ocean between us?”

It ripped him open to admit it but he did. Only truth was allowed between them. I imagined his eyes closed on the word, as the resignation in his voice was heavy-laced, “…no.”

Another sigh.

“No,” he said again, this time in defeat, saying no more. But my mother’s victory was a hollow one, for both of them. They went silent below, speaking without words, I’m sure.

“What does it mean, Jeorgianna?” Aemon whispered to me, hugging his stuffed bear close. He absently stretched out his little hand to place it over mine, waiting for me to explain. He may not have understood but, as young as he was, he knew that something had happened. It hovered in the air and in our parents’ voices. A decision had been made that would change our lives forever. I felt it too and wondered if I should feel afraid.

But even with all that talk of monsters and dead men, I think I would have been more afraid if Papa had won the argument. I agreed with my mother. I wanted us to be together. And I certainly didn't want Papa to go away. Not without us.

I answered Aemon with what I knew, “It means we’re going to Westeros.”


	11. The Crossing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple stormy days on vacation gave me a little extra writing time and work can seriously fuck off today…so you’re getting this chapter a few days earlier than planned. I’m assuming you all don’t mind? 
> 
> Also, let’s rate this chapter T+ just to be safe ;)
> 
> As always, your kudos/endlessly kind and insightful comments brighten my day and keep me going. We have the best readers in fandom. Like, of all the fandoms. Fight me. <3 <3 <3

**_Jorah_ **

The last time I crossed the Narrow Sea, I was running from Ned Stark’s justice, landing in Lys with a fickle wife who had turned cold and bitter at the very sight of me. I remember that we spoke little on the voyage over and less with each day that followed, as Lynesse and I had never had much in common beyond a passing physical attraction, even at the beginning of things. And we had grown apart long before our shared exile. 

We didn’t last in the East, not even a year. 

Lynesse found herself a new life, as a fixture in Tregar Ormollen’s bed, and I soon left for Volantis, to begin the strange, twisting journey of fate that would lead me here, crossing the sea once again. But this time I made the journey with a woman who had become as dear to me as my own flesh, in a way that made my brief marriage to Lynesse Hightower seem paltry and meaningless. 

My time with Lynesse had been cast in a tinker’s cheap tin. My marriage to Daenerys was forged in something much stronger.

I had been naïve when I was a younger man, thinking I knew the true taste of heartbreak. I called myself heartbroken when Lynesse took up with the Lyseni merchant-prince and swore that love had never treated me so ill. But that wasn’t heartbreak. 

That was barely wounded pride. 

No, heartbreak is knowing too well that the sweetness of life may turn sour in an instant. It’s knowing that you willingly deliver the blood of your blood and the heart of your heart to a land where men of power have spent decades attempting to destroy the line of dragons. It’s hoping that the distraction of a larger threat will be enough to keep their plots at bay. It’s knowing that the woman who lays beside you will follow you into darkness, no matter the cost. It’s knowing that should you fail, your children will die before they’re grown.

I had never felt kindred to Rhaegar Targaryen, Daenerys’s eldest brother. He was the king’s son, steeped in honor, titles and riches, and we fought on opposite sides of the battle at the Trident. But I was there at King’s Landing after the Sack and I remember what I saw. And the fates of Elia Martell and her two small children would haunt any man with a conscience. 

Rhaenys and Aegon Targaryen had been my children’s first cousins, massacred when they were no older than Jeorgianna and Aemon were now. This was how dragons were wrangled on the other side of the sea. Did I risk the same by dragging Daenerys and the children back to the land where her family had been so mercilessly slaughtered?

Did Daenerys truly understand the danger?

 _The things we love destroy us every time, Jorah. Every. Time._

These were my father’s words. As dark and hopeless in my memory as they were on the day he first spoke them, only a few hours after we buried my mother. And then he never spoke of her again. Not to the lords and ladies who sent their many condolences to Bear Island, not to his sister or his nieces who would always share his memories, not to me who would always share his pain. 

Not to anyone.

He had failed her and he took it all on himself, despite knowing it was no one’s fault. No one but the gods—those capricious creatures who let her wake one morning, young and vibrant and full of life, only to crush out the spark of her existence before the sun set on the very same day. It was so sudden. She laid down complaining of a headache and never got up again. Neither one of us had a chance to say goodbye.

If my father, as honorable a man as has ever lived, still shoulders the blame of my mother’s death, giving up his lands, forfeiting his title, making penance at the Wall…how would I survive losing Daenerys, knowing that it was I who put her in harm’s way?

The thought chilled me worse than the northern winds that battered the Frostfangs. Worse than the eyes of dead men marching south in a raging snowstorm.

I had begged her to stay at home. We quarreled before we left and it wasn’t mended yet. Even now, lying side by side in the night-clad bunk of our cabin on a ship bound for Westeros, we remained a few inches apart. 

Those inches might have been miles.

She didn’t withhold herself from me. No, it was my own fault. I was a fool about these things. I had thought coolness between us might convince her to stay, even if my words could not. But my wife was a headstrong woman and didn’t I know that better than anyone?

I couldn’t sleep, even though the sea was calm and the roll and pitch of the waves beneath the ship’s hull sang a smooth lullaby during our crossing. Lying on my side, I faced her. Moonlight fell through a line of starboard side windows, casting her features in pale shades of blue-silver. Her body curled towards mine, blonde head tipped down on her pillow, eyes closed, long dark lashes resting against the top of her cheeks. 

But Daenerys was just as restless, with her breath uneven enough to let me know she wasn’t sleeping, despite those closed eyes. And when she shifted in the night, stretching out her leg beneath the brown furs and accidently grazing mine in the process, I watched her eyes slowly open, fully alert. She met my gaze across the pillow immediately.

She didn’t seem surprised to find me awake.

“You aren’t sleeping, Ser,” she whispered to me, her words crossing the barrier between us effortlessly. Her use of the old title was an invitation, softly given. 

“Neither are you, _Khaleesi_ ,” I answered, just as softly. Jeorgianna and Aemon were sleeping in the adjoining cabin so they wouldn’t hear us, even if we raised our voices to normal levels. Still, it was night, and the hour called for hushed words.

Her foot lingered against my calf muscle, lightly massaging up and down, skin against skin. The distance between us crumbled far easier down beneath the sheets and furs, where sight and pride held no sway. 

“You worry too much.” Her hand edged a little closer on the sheets between us, nearly breaching the invisible line we’d created earlier in the night, when I failed to reach for her and she neglected to try twice. She warned, “You’ll make yourself old before your time.”

“I _am_ old, Daenerys,” I reminded her, feeling ancient in that moment. The idea of returning to Westeros had greyed the world considerably, enough to match the generous sprinkling of grey in my beard. I felt the weight of the past and the unknowns of the future bearing down on me hard, as if I was locked in irons somewhere fathoms deep, with the whole weight of the sea pressing down upon me.

My hand rested on the bed near hers, barely a breath of space between them. It would only take a stretch of my finger to stroke her wrist. Just one.

“Not as old as you like to pretend,” she replied wisely, her voice dropping to a huskier note, as beneath the sheets she was playing our combined sense of touch to her advantage. My body responded in the manner of a much younger man, and she knew it. That sly glimmer in her violet eyes told me she knew _exactly_ what she was doing. 

“Maybe so,” I conceded as I exhaled slowly, always too easily conquered where she was the one attempting the conquest. I felt a familiar heat flooding my veins and I had no desire to resist it. My desires…well, she knew those too, considering she was at the center of them all.

Out of the sheets, my fingers wandered, finally, running along the curve of her slim wrist. It was such a little thing. I tried to remember. Why hadn’t I done this hours ago? Daenerys’s soft palm turned into the caress. Her fingers crawled closer, finding a home with mine. My own hand slid upwards, receiving her much smaller one like a salve. 

We lay in silence for a moment, those hands clasped together. That invisible barrier was still intact, but losing its faulty power with every wave that crested the hull of the ship. It would dissolve like ink in water soon enough. But Daenerys was impatient to be done with it and unwilling to wait another second. 

“There’s one thing that always helps you sleep,” she offered coyly, knowing the truth of her words from experience. Her teeth played against her already plump bottom lip and her mouth had gone soft enough to draw me in with little trouble. If this was a game, she’d already won. Still, she raised her eyebrows just slightly, pretty gaze fixed on mine, waiting for my answer. 

“Aye,” I answered her, feeling the tug of a smirk come across my lips, despite my best attempts to remain as taciturn as ever. Gods, she was too lovely and too generous with her affection. Nearly ten years of being married to her and I was as much a slave to her will as I’d ever been. I’d never be over her. And those talented hands of hers…she soon dragged mine down with her own, far beneath the sheets and furs, to play games I was too unwilling to say no to.

Her eyes were wide and tender, promising that she’d banish my darkest thoughts, if only I’d let her. 

Oh, I’d let her. I had no choice in the matter. I reached for her fully then, pulling her body flush against mine, so she had no doubt that her ploys had worked. And there was such relief in the simple act of taking her in my arms that I nearly sighed. She was tempted to laugh, and muffled the small chuckle that escaped her lips by burying her head against my chest, not wanting to wake the children. 

She couldn’t suppress the broad smile that claimed her features though, as she took great pleasure in her victory. No more than I, making the best of my defeat, as I turned her body easily with mine, changing our positions smoothly, having practiced this dance with her regularly for the better part of ten years. 

I hovered just above her, taking in the comely sight of her silver-blonde hair fanned out against white sheets. I loved her hair. Had I told her that lately? I would, later. But not now, when words were just not… 

My mouth sank down against hers to claim that bottom lip that she kept teasing. It was as soft as ever and more than ready to play against mine. She grinned on the sweet taste of that kiss and murmured “my stubborn bear” against the side of my mouth, before opening her own a little wider to allow my tongue entrance. 

While our lips were occupied, her hands broke free, first holding fast at my neck, then sliding over my collar bone and chest to trail down my torso. She claimed one of my hands again, before exploring lower still, our hands drifting together, down the rise of her hip and up under her sheer nightgown to rest at the inside of her thigh, where her skin pulsed both warm and damp.

I didn’t keep her waiting long. Any man who would keep Daenerys waiting had no business being in her bed. She was the most beautiful creature fashioned by the gods, both inside and out, whether she knew it or not. She was the mother of my children, the song of my very soul, and I would love her until the day I drew my last breath. And for as long after as the damned gods would allow.

“Jorah…,” I heard her speak my name at my ear lobe, in sensuous tones, her voice imploring. “I swear I can still hear your mind spinning. And if you don’t stop it and just take me…”

“I know, love,” I answered her in every way, kiss for kiss, touch for touch. “I know…” 

Together, we pierced the gloom of that night with the force of Valyrian steel.

### 

“You’re still not asleep,” Daenerys chided afterwards, but this time she was curled in my embrace, pulled snugly against my chest, my arm encircling her waist, my lips grazing against loose strands of her silver-blonde hair as I replied. 

“No,” I admitted, pressing a lingering kiss to her hair. “But soon. I promise.”

Dawn was still a ways off and my reasons for staying awake now were far different than an hour ago. My thoughts were tranquil and unhurried, centered on Daenerys, her violet eyes sparkling under the rose-gold of a Jade Sea sunrise, the citrus and jasmine fragrance that scented the air around the villa at home, and images of Jeorgianna and Aemon looking for treasures in the garden or running down the beach to catch fireflies and search for sand dollars at low tide.

“Good,” Daenerys teased sleepily, her voice already fading to a low, dreamy hum. She mumbled, “Because I won’t be the only one trying to entertain two young, energetic children at sea tomorrow…” 

She yawned once before nestling further down beneath the furs, as close to me as possible. One of her hands slid to rest beneath the pillow we shared and the other remained perched on my forearm, her fingers lightly stroking the ginger hairs she found there. Her fingers moved less and less as I felt her body relax into deep sleep, her breathing pattern becoming as even as the gentle roll of the sea beneath us.

I listened to her steady breathing, I listened to the sea. I felt as if my iron shackles had fallen off and I swam up from murksome depths, breaking the surface, renewed. 

With that last thought, I joined her in the world of dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See, D&D? It’s not that hard to include the #rightboatsex…


	12. A Gillyflower in Winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I heart Gilly. Have I mentioned? Gilly and Sam’s story in canon GoT was the only reliable bright spot in an otherwise dark, dark timeline. I also heart the S5 friendship between Gilly and Shireen, which was just perfect. Seriously. Someone teaching someone else to read??? Ummm, that’s the most heroic storyline in the whole show if you ask me…haha well, other than #JorahTakesOnAThousandWightsToSaveDanyAndThenDiesInHerArms but you all knew that.
> 
> Anyway, the scene I’m setting up for the next chapter (which is a pretty big scene) starts in this one and I just really wanted an outsider’s viewpoint. Which is where Gilly comes in. And for your reward, next chapter shall be written from the POV of Jeor-MotherFluffing-Mormont :) #GrandpaJeorscenesPLURALarehere 
> 
> Finally, go back to chapters 5 & 6\. Do not pass “go.” Do not collect the Westerosi equivalent of $200. Just go. Because in chapters 5 & 6 you will find delicious and glorious @salzrand artwork for your eyes to feast on. #nowords #justlove #andendlessfangirling #asqasdfghjkl; <3 <3 <3 <3

**_Gilly_ **

“That’s Howland Reed of Greywater Watch,” Shireen told me, pointing down to one of the many men standing in the frosty, snow-covered courtyard of Castle Black. 

He was grey-bearded and wiry and wore a shirt of bronze scales beneath his winter cloak. He was speaking with Shireen’s father and the Lord Commander on the lower dais of the wooden platforms, where the men were surveying the bustling activity in the yard. Free folk, brothers of the Night’s Watch, Northmen and Lord Stannis’s soldiers mixed freely, fashioning weapons, repairing armor and strengthening the old fortifications, in case the worst happened and the massive wall of ice behind us failed to stand.

I don’t know why they bothered shoring up the defenses on this side. If the Wall fell, we were all dead anyway.

But maybe it kept them busy. Maybe it kept them from thinking too much about what was coming. Shireen and I were doing the same. We’d come up from the library for some fresh air and were now distracting ourselves with watching the new arrivals trickle in from the Kingsroad.

Lord Reed had arrived less than an hour ago, greeting Lord Stannis and the Lord Commander as if they were old comrades. Shireen confirmed that they were, having fought on the same side in the war against the Mad King. 

I wouldn’t know. I knew very few of the southerners by name and I still wasn’t sure why they all needed two names anyway or what the difference was between a family name and a given name. And their histories were all so tangled up with each other that I couldn’t keep it straight. 

Light snow was falling from the skies above, fluttering down in the courtyard and gathering on the railings of the stone tower we lingered in. Little Sam cooed in my arms, as watchful as Shireen and me, attention caught by the many comings and goings below. His pudgy little hands stretched out beyond the swaddling clothes I’d wrapped him in, bundled up against the awful blasts of cold air blowing in from the north.

“Where’s Greywater Watch?” I asked.

“It’s down in the Neck, below Moat Cailin,” Shireen answered.

“Is that where Sam’s from?” I wondered, but hesitantly, worried that I was pestering her with my questions. “The Neck?”

But she didn’t seem to mind and just shook her head, smiling pleasantly at my mistake, “The Reach,” she corrected gently. “Horn Hill is further south.”

Shireen knew most of the lords who filtered into the gates by the Kingsroad, either by sight or by the color and sigil flown on their banners and she was more than willing to share her knowledge with me. Other than her mother and the Lady Melisandre, we were the only two women at Castle Black and we seemed drawn to each other naturally. 

It was a strange sort of friendship, considering she was the highborn daughter of the rightful King of Westeros and I was one of Craster’s daughters, born in a cursed shack above the Wall. But she had grown up alone, hidden away in a lonely tower with only her scarred face and books for company. And even though I didn’t regret leaving my father’s house behind, not for a single moment, I missed my sisters. I missed them all the time.

Shireen and I weren’t that far apart in age, not really. In some ways, I felt so much older, especially holding Little Sam in my arms. But in other ways, ways of books and knowledge and the world below the Wall…I was the child.

But it didn’t seem to matter. She taught me how to read and I never shied away from the scars on her face. I’d seen worse at Craster’s and there was no shame in those scars.

_Greyscale_ , she said when I asked her what the disease was called. We didn’t have a name for it above the Wall. We just called it death.

There was no helping my sisters, no herbs in the woods that could stop the madness. They were doomed from the moment the rash started spreading across their skin. I remember their screaming moans and their pleas to our father, when he forced them outside, banishing them beyond the safety of the Keep. And I remember what happened when the screaming stopped. 

But Shireen wasn’t doomed and she didn’t die. I couldn’t understand it. Above the Wall, something like that wasn’t possible. 

I was in awe of Lord Stannis. Not because he was a king, but because of what he did for his daughter. Sam said that when she got sick, Stannis searched and searched for a cure, all over the world, without rest. And somehow, he found it and he saved her. I don’t know much of the world and I don’t know much of good fathers but…it seemed to me a very kind thing that he’d done. 

My eyes were drawn to Shireen’s face again, and those scars, as she related what she knew of Howland Reed. 

“Howland Reed and Ned Stark were at the Tower of Joy,” she mentioned in her quiet way, as she leaned against the edge of the crossbeam on the railing, intelligent eyes cast below. She continued, “That was the stronghold where Rhaegar Targaryen had taken Lyanna Stark after he stole her away.”

“Did they rescue her?” I asked, curious. I remembered reading those names in one of the newer scrolls in the library, one not yet yellowed by age or split by tears. But I didn’t understand much of it. I still didn’t know the Mad King’s real name, or why he went mad, or where all the dragons went, or why Robert Baratheon’s widow and his brother would never make peace. 

“No, she was already dead when they got there,” Shireen replied. “But when they took the Tower, Howland Reed slew Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. Father says he was the greatest swordsman in the Seven Kingdoms.”

“Oh,” I nodded, head buzzing with the image of dueling swords in the dusty sunlight of some place far away from here. Some place warm. Some place with less snow and ice. I hoped that Lord Reed would be as skilled against White Walkers. 

I hoped _all_ the men below knew what they were doing. The Red Priestess didn’t need to speak her words of night and terror for me to be scared of what was coming. I knew already. I knew the kind of creatures my father served before he died. 

_Get him south, Gillyflower._

Maester Aemon’s words had been ringing in my ears for hours. The old man was sleeping in his chambers now, but he’d been awake earlier and anxious to tell me those words. I would have to check on him again soon. He was fading fast. I didn’t think he would last much longer, which I knew would break Sam’s heart. The maester’s words drifted in and out of sense, just as he drifted in and out of consciousness. But his instruction to me this morning, spoken with such resounding authority, sounded like a vow and I couldn’t shake it.

_Get him south, Gillyflower._

I was so tempted to follow the maester’s advice, but I had nowhere to run. I’d never been south further than Mole’s Town. I knew nothing of maps or roads below the Wall. Sam would stay, must stay. Shireen too. And Little Sam and I had no other friends in the world. So I resisted the urge to run, when I knew we must stand. 

The Lord Commander had made that clear when he spoke to the assembled lords in the Shieldhall a few nights ago. We must all stand. Or we would all fall. 

Ravens had been sent from both the Wall and Winterfell, far flung across all Seven Kingdoms, with a simple message signed jointly by Stannis Baratheon, Jon Stark and Lord Commander Mormont, calling on the Houses of Westeros to lay down their arms and march north to war. 

Stannis’s Red Priestess insisted it was the last fight and must be won. I agreed with her, although I didn’t like her very much. I didn’t like how she went on about the importance of king’s blood or how we must win this fight for the Lord of Light. I was nobody important so she’d never spoken to me directly, and she barely gave me a glance even when we crossed paths in the castle’s corridors. But her smile seemed false and cruel and her strange accent never held enough fear for my liking. 

Especially if this was the Long Night. The one that my father used to go on about. I still remember the horrified look on his face after discovering one of my sisters hiding a newborn boy child under a basket of rags in the house. 

“You will kill us all, wife!” he seethed drunkenly, striking her and ripping the baby from her breast in a rage. The child dangled in his arms like a sack of flour as he grabbed his axe and coat before immediately heading out into the woods. He didn’t spare a glance on his son and just grumbled about, “making it right.” And when he returned, having done whatever it was he did with our brothers and sons, he beat my sister until her eyes were swollen shut and her left arm was broken in two places. 

This was how my father made things right with the gods.

I’m glad he’s dead. I’m glad he won’t live to see if his offerings to those monsters in the woods would have made any difference. 

Sam believes that they would have turned on Craster in the end and he would have been slayed just the same. Maybe by the very same creatures that had once been my brothers. Maybe that would have been justice. I don’t know. I feel very little when I think of my father. Or my brothers.

“In everything I’ve read, I can’t find a single account that would say deals between men and White Walkers are ever possible,” Sam told me two nights ago. “If they don’t destroy every living thing, their whole purpose remains unfulfilled. Craster was buying himself time, nothing more.”

_Good_ , I thought, with bitter satisfaction. If my father had been right about anything, I don’t think I could stand it. Even if it meant we were all going to die. And I told Sam so.

Sam clucked his tongue at my usual pessimism and told me not to worry, stating with a wide grin that was impossible to douse, apparently even in the darkest times, “I killed one of them, remember?”

“Yes, I remember,” I replied patiently, with a small sigh, knowing that there was as much luck involved in that kill as anything else. And his strong desire to protect me and Little Sam. 

Maybe that was enough? Maybe the idea that you have to save the ones you love is enough to manage the impossible?

We’d find out soon enough. 

Because there was no doubt that they were coming. Jon had seen them at Hardhome when he, Mance Rayder and the tall, red-haired wildling took a group of men and went up to try and convince the remaining free folk to join us. And the survivors were all grim as a grave when they spoke about the things they had faced in the Shivering Bay. 

From our tower perch, we watched Ser Davos walk briskly across the yard from the rookery. There was a scroll in his hand. The message was likely from Jon, who was now traveling across the North with his sister, Lady Sansa, to tell what he had seen at Hardhome and beg the more resisting lords and ladies to join us at Castle Black. 

Climbing the wooden stair, Ser Davos joined Howland Reed, Lord Stannis and the Lord Commander in their hushed discussion. 

“Open the gates!” came the familiar cry from one of the brothers of the Night’s Watch. With new arrivals trickling in at every hour, they should probably just leave the gates wide open. At the sound of iron scraping over ice, my eyes were drawn away from the men to the frost-painted gate.

“Who are they?” I asked Shireen, as we saw a man and woman ride in on horseback, both strangers to my eyes. 

I was immediately struck by the uncommon shade of silver-blonde hair peeking out from the woman’s dark blue cloak and the bearing of the tall knight who rode beside her, for he must be a knight with that heavy broadsword sheathed in his scabbard. They both seemed like fairytale characters, handling their horses with great ease, and riding in with the posture of royalty, though they had no guards or entourage with them. 

I broke my stare to seek out Shireen’s answer, but the young girl beside me was shrugging, her eyes narrowed slightly as she took in the sight of the new arrivals, just as struck, just as unsure of their identities.

The knight rode a coal black stallion, and had a little girl riding with him, hair as silver-blonde as the woman on the white mare. After he dismounted, he reached up and plucked the girl from the saddle to set her down on the snow-dusted ground. Her little gaze was running over the castle slowly, drawn up to the highest reaches of the Wall itself, as she took in the unfamiliar surroundings. 

In the meantime, the knight went to the woman’s side. He took the toddler she handed down to him, a boy with tousled hair only a year or two older than Little Sam, before giving the silver-haired lady a hand down from her mount as well. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement on the wooden platform—a sharp turn of the head as the Lord Commander caught sight of the strangers. His expression changed very suddenly, which was unusual. The Lord Commander’s expression was rarely anything but somber or stern and there was little news that could ruffle him in anyway. 

At first, I thought it might be in reaction to the scroll in Ser Davos’s hand. Bad news was not uncommon lately.

But, down below, Ser Davos hadn’t finished speaking and his eyes glimmered with hope that said it wasn’t bad news that he brought at all. And yet, Jeor Mormont _wasn’t_ listening. His eyes had drifted away from the other men and were fixed on the couple in the courtyard. But unlike us, who observed them with no recognition, the Lord Commander’s expression betrayed a deep, unshakeable knowledge. And surprise. And something else.

He _knew_ who they were. Which only made me more curious. And I wasn’t the only one. 

Ser Davos had paused in his telling and Lord Stannis and Lord Reed likewise took note of the Lord Commander’s reaction, all going silent as they turned to follow the older man’s line of sight and see what had commandeered his attention so fully.

The knight in the courtyard caught sight of the Lord Commander at almost the same moment. And his face changed as well. Where it had been soft as he helped his lady down, and gentle with the children, there was a flicker of something hard and stern that overtook his features now. Not anger, not hate, or anything like that. It was…a sullenness and an old sadness that spoke of many things.

And having shared meals and living space with the Lord Commander at Castle Black for some time now, it suddenly struck me how much they resembled one other. The resemblance was too near to be coincidence.

“That’s his son,” I murmured, without realizing that I was speaking aloud.

“Whose son?” Shireen asked, thoroughly confused.

“The Lord Commander’s son,” I answered plainly, as confident of that fact as she had been of the rest of the lords. I was never confident, not ever, so it was a strange feeling for me. But seeing those two men meet each other’s gaze across the courtyard below left me with no doubts. I added, having heard the story from Sam or Jon or one of the other boys, “The one who went into exile years ago.”

Shireen’s lips parted and her eyebrows shot up, surprised. She looked down again as she considered…

“Ser Jorah Mormont?” Shireen’s eyes blinked on the name, the pieces of a puzzle she didn’t know she was putting together suddenly fitting together in her head snugly. Below, we watched Ser Jorah bow his head very slightly in his father’s direction, after a gentle nudge from his lady. Shireen wondered, “But then who is…?”

Her attention shifted to the woman who had arrived with Ser Jorah. The lady was younger than her knight by some years but the way she carried herself betrayed that she was either older than she looked or that she’d seen great tragedy and lived through it. There are some wisdoms that have nothing to do with age. And that sort of thing isn’t something you can fake.

The knight and the silver-haired lady shared a silent look as he passed the little boy back into her arms. The little girl stayed close to them but her eyes were still wandering. She briefly caught sight of Shireen and me as her gaze drifted down from the towering heights of the Wall. She smiled, very small and a little shyly. But she smiled at us before bringing her attention to the Lord Commander, who had taken a slow, hesitating step off the platform. 

Except for the ringing sound of hot metal being struck by a hammer, the courtyard of Castle Black went quiet, all struck speechless by the unexpected sight of Ser Jorah Mormont and the silver-haired lady he brought with him. 

There was history here that I didn’t know and a connection that I couldn’t guess at. I shifted Little Sam in my arms and turned to Shireen.

“Do you know who she is?” I wondered.

Shireen nodded, though her voice sounded like she was barely trusting her own eyes. Still, she said, “I think she’s Daenerys Targaryen. The lost princess…the Mad King’s daughter.”


	13. The Things We Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> #GrandpaJeor
> 
> That’s it. That’s the chapter summary :)
> 
> P.S. Make sure to flip back to Chs. 7 & 8 - @salzrand continues to amaze *all the heart eyes*...both are fabulous but Ch. 8's illustration is definitely my newest obsession. So. Soft. <3333

**_Jeor_ **

The little ones had Jorah’s eyes.

His mother’s eyes. 

_Julia._ That was my wife’s name. I wonder if anyone else remembers it? I haven’t spoken her name aloud in a score of years. No, twice that. Is that how long she’s been gone? Sometimes it feels like an eternity and other times, a single hour. As if she just walked down to the Keep and I need only go home to hear her crystalline voice and see her face once more. _Julia, forgive me, I didn’t mean to forget…_

That shade of blue has no equal. None that I’ve found in all my years. As near as I could describe it—it was like the sky of early spring, when the eaves are still dripping and the crocus pushes its first buds up from beneath the snow. Like the heart of an iceberg bobbing up and down on the waves a cold, northern sea. I’d forgotten…

I’d forgotten that color. Or I hadn’t thought on it long enough that I might as well have forgotten it. And I didn’t recognize its absence until I heard the men calling out orders to open the gate, heralding yet another new arrival. I turned on instinct, gaze drawn across the snowy courtyard of Castle Black to see two riders enter by the gate, and suddenly saw eyes of that same shade staring back at me. My heart jumped in my chest. 

_It belonged to my son Jorah…_

I had resigned myself to never seeing him again. We would pass through the rest of our lives on opposite sides of the world. I knew that. I accepted it, even though reading that scroll from Winterfell all those years ago, the one detailing my son’s crimes and giving Ned Stark’s near apology for demanding fair justice, was not pleasant. I crumpled that piece of parchment in my fist before throwing it in the fire, knowing that the flames would not be able to burn the words out of my head. 

My wife in her early grave, my son lost to me forever. Such is life. There were others who had suffered far worse. 

But forgetting…I hadn’t meant to forget. Not the color of Julia’s eyes. Not the way Jorah’s head ducked just a little, his lips pressed together, when he knew he disappointed me. He’d done the same since he was a little boy.

Perhaps it’s unavoidable. Time passes and the sharp pain of memory dulls to an ache that settles deep in your bones and you only feel it when the weather turns cold or the wind changes direction. But it hollows you out after a time and starts to carve out the parts of you that feel anything, to lay down ice and stone where flesh and blood should be.

_My son, my only child…_

I can’t tell you how it works. How the stone crumbles and the ice melts in the span of a single moment. How the heart suddenly bleeds inwardly for lost time and lost chances and things we should have said, or done, or felt. The rush of the past and present floods over your entire being, voices going silent, all the many faces around you suddenly lost in a blurring crowd.

As I turned on that platform and I saw my son, I swear the rest of it faded away. Ser Davos continued speaking, giving us news that the Lannisters had lost another ally. The Queen of Thorns had tangled with the lions and come away dressed in black, her grandchildren slaughtered, her house destroyed. And now Olenna Tyrell was sending her forces north to join us in the fight against the dead, so long as Stannis agreed to bring Cersei Lannister to justice afterwards. It was good news. If we were going to survive the coming weeks, we needed more news like this.

But I heard nothing. I saw nothing but my boy, older now, sporting a sprinkling of grey in his beard, with laugh lines and weathered creases around his eyes that hadn’t been there before. I saw only him, and the woman and two children he brought with him. 

_See how the Targaryen woman presses his arm so gently. See how he stands, patiently, meekly, the pride of his youth exchanged for a humility born of years in exile._

All the years that had passed between the last time I saw him and that moment, it didn’t matter. What he’d done, how things had been left between us—none of it mattered. Time sewed itself up with a single stitch and that old ache in my bones came back with such a vengeance, as if the pain that I hadn’t let myself feel for _years_ , of separation, loss and…loneliness, suddenly tried to crush me out like an orange wedge beneath a knife blade.

And yet, the pain was mixed with joy. There was no denying that. My heart leapt at the sight of my son. _Jorah._ I never thought I’d see him again. I truly didn’t. And there he was, just like that, standing only a few yards away from me… 

I descended the wooden staircase slowly, shocked into silence, still unsure if what I was seeing was plain truth or some vision that my old, addled brain was playing at. With dead men rising and a red sorceress in our mix, I hadn’t trusted my senses in months.

But the little girl— _Jeorgianna_ , that was the name Jorah had written in his letter—stared up at me with curious eyes and cheeks gone rosy red from the cold. And the little boy—they’d named him Aemon, hadn’t they? It was a good choice. A good name for a good man.

According to Samwell Tarly and his wildling girl, the older Aemon would not be bound by the chains of this world much longer. He was my brother and my friend and I would be sad to see him go. We will not see his like again, blood of the dragon, wisest among us. The younger Aemon looked less like a dragon and every inch a bear cub, as he was bundled up in dark furs and held close in his mother’s arms. He sneezed once, from deep in the folds of those winter clothes. 

For all the rest of it…the children, at least, seemed real enough. _My grandchildren_ , the unlikely thought registered where others failed.

Jorah had inclined his head slightly, in a show of respect for me, all those many things that he hadn’t said before he left spilling over his crestfallen expression and filling the silent space between us to the brim. My heart ached again, this time for him and for the feelings I knew he couldn’t express.

“Father…,” he said hoarsely, his voice weather-rough from the cold ride in, but he could manage no more than the simple greeting, still too unsure of my reception. 

I knew the words he couldn’t say. I knew them as well as I knew my own. I’d played them out in my head a thousand times.

_My son brought dishonor upon our house…_

_Forgive me, Father…_

_But he had the grace to leave…_

_I was young and foolish and I didn’t know what love was…_

_The things we love destroy us…_

_Please, Father. Please don’t say that…_

“Jorah,” I answered evenly, before sparing a glance on the comely woman who stood beside him. She was lovely. Her silver-blonde hair gave her away and her features resembled her brother Rhaegar’s well enough that I would have had no doubt of her identity, even if she didn’t arrive with my son. Here was the lost princess, back on the shores that might once have been hers, the land that had been her family’s to conquer and rule for generations. 

Robert Baratheon had been so afraid of her for so long. This little woman, her hair braided simply, her expression soft and maternal as she fussed over Aemon—I tried to picture her with armies to command but found I couldn’t. Not with the child in her arms. 

It wasn’t really a question but I asked, nonetheless, “And you are Daenerys Targaryen?”

“Yes, my lord,” she replied, violet eyes snapping on the name. She added, as a reminder, “But I’ve taken your son’s name.”

“Of course, my lady,” I nodded, noting how attached to it she seemed to be. And to Jorah. The strength of their bond was pressed into the very ink of that first letter he sent. But here, it was obvious to anyone with eyes. She kept stealing glances towards my son, her face betraying her feelings easily. It was all worry and doubt, for his sake. She knew the inner turmoil that carved him up. So did I. 

His eyes begged my forgiveness, even if his words failed to ask it outright.

“You did me a service some years ago,” I continued, still addressing Daenerys. “I wouldn’t be here if not for your warning so I thank you for that”—my gaze slipped to Jorah’s—“And _you_ for sending the letter.”

There was a pause, as he gauged his next words.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d burn it without reading it,” he mentioned, knowing me too well.

“I considered it,” I admitted honestly, never one to smooth over an unpleasant truth. He nodded, glumly, his gaze dropping from mine and his head ducking down once again.

I was tempted to embrace him, there, in that courtyard, with all of Castle Black watching on. I hadn’t seen him in more than ten years and he was my only child. The last of my line and, other than Lyanna, who I hadn’t seen since she was a babe in Maege’s arms, the last of our house. I don’t think any man alive would blame me.

And pride was swelling up in my chest as well. For we needed fighters and my son knew it. He’d answered a call from halfway around the world, when we were still struggling to convince those that were little more than ten leagues away. He did the Mormont name proud, as we had kept faith with the North for a thousand years and wouldn’t break it now. Not at the North’s darkest hour. We were blood of the First Men. Our family words were just as strong as the Stark’s. And just as certain.

_Here we stand._

Despite the things he’d done and the misjudgments that drove him to flee this country, I knew my son. I knew his worth and his skills as a warrior. It was I who put a sword in his hands for the first time. And I knew that we’d be better for his presence in the war to come.

His mother would not have hesitated to take him in her arms, to welcome him home, to tell him she’d missed him and that she was glad he was well. She was suddenly rushing through my memory with the same splash of reflection as when she used to hike up her skirt to her knees and wade out into the mountain waters on Bear Island, like a russet-haired river maiden, all wild spirits and sparkling laughter, her bare feet running along the pine-strewn paths of the green wood to catch up with me and whisper summer secrets in my ear.

_Don’t be such a bear, Jeor. For life is too short and the day is too pleasant…_

But summer was long over and Julia was long dead. So my arms remained at my side, stubbornly.

Fortunately, Jeorgianna’s did not. 

She’d been leaning back against her father, intelligent eyes taking in the uncommon sight of the towering Wall, the castle, the curious glances of the many faces surrounding us. But now her attention had settled on me, listening to my voice and studying my features. She took a small but sure step forward, releasing her hold on Jorah, her laced boots crunching over the icy covering of snow on the ground. 

She was hesitant but also fearless. And so the little girl reached up and touched my hand briefly, fleetingly, just one curl of her little fingers over my much larger ones before bringing them back to clasp her hands in front of her.

She stared up at me. 

“Are you my grandfather?” she asked, bluntly. She didn’t ask her mother or father for confirmation. She asked me, her eyes never wavering from mine.

I nearly chuckled at her manner. Her Mormont blood was strong despite the fact that she looked just like a bloody Targaryen.

“Aye, lass,” I answered softly, sinking down to her level and bending my knee on the snow before her. “I am.”

“I thought so,” she replied, her expression breaking into a dimpled grin, happy to have guessed right, I expect. But then she bit her lip lightly and swayed a little, suddenly shy again. She was as pretty as her mother, with that silver-blonde hair decorated with the white tinsel of falling snow. But she looked like Jorah too, and like Julia…and like me. 

_You are to be a grandfather._

“I’m very glad to meet you, Jeorgianna,” I said, never more sincere of anything in my entire life. 

I offered her my hand and she smiled a little wider at the sound of her name falling from my lips. My granddaughter’s smile was warmer than the summer sun. Brighter than all the copper and gold coins stashed away in Casterly Rock and the Iron Bank of Braavos combined. She took my hand, her own disappearing within the palm of my much larger bear paw. 

Her smile may have been warm but her skin was cold to the touch, so I covered her hand with both of mine. Then I brought those hands to my lips to blow on them, hoping to warm her frigid fingers a little. The children weren’t used to this climate. None of us were. This was a winter that would outlast all the others. Even if the dead men failed to kill us, I’m sure the weather would do its best to finish the job. 

“Come inside,” I said to them as I rose. I kept Jeorgianna’s hand in my own because I found I didn’t want to let it go. Not quite yet. And I was smiling. I hadn’t realized until I turned back to Jorah and felt the muscles of my face drop down again, too unused to that sort of thing to hold it for long. 

My eyes moved between my son and his wife, my voice more gravelly and stern than I’d intended. I’d been Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch for too many years. My words too often fell from my lips as commands. I didn’t know how else to be. 

But I added, in what I hoped was a gentler, if ever growling, tone, “Come in before you all freeze to death.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve never named Jorah’s mother before in any of my fics but I have such a concrete backstory worked out for her in my head and she’s been Julia Mormont to me for about two years, so I thought it was time to make it official…at least in this fic :) 
> 
> #Mormontfeeeeeeeeels


	14. Night Gathers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dragons and bears and early updates, oh my :)
> 
> Seriously, though. I think I’ve lost control of Aemon Mormont. The kid has taken on a life of his own. I’m not sure I can even take credit for him anymore. I write words and he’s like, no, let’s do this instead. And then I do, because he’s the cutest bean of all the beans and who can say no to a bear cub like that? Not me.
> 
> @salzrand is finding this out too…and if you don’t believe me, flip back to Chs. 9 and 11 for fanart evidence of the most glorious and gorgeous kind *heart eyes* Also stop by Ch. 10 for some extra #Jorleesifeeeeeeeeels *all the heart eyes*
> 
> XOXOXO to my readers. I can never thank you enough for all the comments/joy/love…but I’ll continue trying, I promise #akaMoreChaptersToCome #AtLeastFive #ISaidThatLikeFiveChaptersAgo #Oops #HopefullyYouDontMind <3 <3 <3

**_Daenerys_ **

“Egg? E-gg?” Maester Aemon’s quavering voice called out in the quiet of the room, and not for the first time.

The old man seemed to have one foot in the world of the living and one in the world of shadows. Gilly, the wildling girl, said he’d been this way for some time. He’d taken to his bed a few days before we arrived and hadn’t managed to get out of it since. 

But he was talking again, which was an improvement. That first night, when Jorah’s father led us to the old man’s chambers, Maester Aemon hadn’t stirred at all. He lay with his arms crossed over his chest as if he were dead already.

“Aemon? There are some dragons here who have travelled a long way to see you, my friend,” Jeor had tried to rouse him, softly squeezing the old man’s shoulder. But Maester Aemon’s eyes remained closed and he spoke not a word. 

And yet his breathing, however unsteady, continued. 

Honestly, when we arrived at Castle Black, I hadn’t expected to find my uncle alive. Jorah had told me that Aemon Targaryen was over a hundred years old and I thought he must have died years ago. And yet here he stayed. Here, he remained. Perhaps, like me, he’d learned some lessons in stubbornness from the bears in our lives. 

In the end, I was glad he was still living, if only because it meant that my children and I weren’t the only dragons left. Not yet.

Gilly said that he seemed to like it when she or Sam Tarly sat with him, even when he couldn’t say so himself, even when he didn’t seem to notice that they were in the room with him. So the morning after we arrived, the children and I kept her company in Maester Aemon’s chambers while Jorah joined his father and the others in further preparations.

Shireen, Stannis’s daughter, came in a little later. She and Gilly had an easy manner between them and I could see why. Shireen had none of her father’s legendary aloofness, nor her mother’s fidgety spite. She had greeted my children with such grace and warmth the night before, although she was older than both of them and had no duty to say anything at all.

Her generosity of spirit was apparent, even on such brief acquaintance. And I felt a strange, unlikely kinship to her from the first. 

Her uncle, Robert, had destroyed my family, digging us out by the roots like weeds, with my brother and I flung farthest across the sea. But that was all years before she was born. And who was I to hold family sins against a young girl who had nothing to do with them? 

Besides, Shireen was a princess born on Dragonstone. So was I. 

We were the only two women in the world who could say that…and somehow, I felt like it mattered. 

And her poor, ruined face. My heart _ached_ for her mother and what she must have felt the day she found out her baby had contracted a disease that came with a death sentence. The mere thought of it cut me open and was immediately followed by the impulse to hug Jeorgianna and Aemon close to my breast. 

Although, upon meeting Selyse, I wondered if it tore her up at all. The woman seemed as hard as stone, where her daughter was soft as down. 

I was proud of Jeorgianna, who did not look at Shireen’s scars longer than to say, with empathy, “Did it hurt?” 

“I don’t remember. I was very little and I just remember my father promising that he would find me a new doll,” Shireen assured her with a sweet smile. Jeorgianna smiled back much the same and they were friends from that moment forward. 

That morning, Shireen brought a book with her called “The Dance of Dragons.” It was covered in gold-flecked illustrations of great-winged beasts and exciting battles from long ago, pages filled with men and women whose hair shone silver-blond in sunlight. Like Jeorgianna’s, like mine. She beckoned Jeorgianna over to the window seat in Maester Aemon’s chambers so they could pore over it together, illuminations of color made more brilliant in natural light, no matter how winter-pale.

“E-gg? Where are you, Egg?” the maester croaked out again.

“What’s he want with eggs, Mama?” Aemon had been sitting with me since we came in, watching the old man with a critical eye. He turned on my lap and asked me his question _very_ seriously. The look on his little face said he’d tried to work out all of the logical answers and none of them made sense. 

“Not eggs,” Gilly jumped in, answering him before I had a chance. “Just…Egg.”

“Is he hungry?” Aemon wondered, missing the nuance of her reply.

“No, I don’t think he’s hungry, darling,” I said, keeping my voice low. I explained, “He’s resting.”

But Aemon wasn’t convinced. He crawled off my lap to pad the few steps to the maester’s bed. And then he climbed up the side of the wooden frame and sat on the blankets near the old man’s elbow, scooching closer, with his boots hanging off the side of the bed and his hands folded quietly in his lap. 

He took a breath, as if readying himself to give bad news. He looked so much like Jorah in that moment that I forgot to tell him to leave the good maester alone.

“We don’t have any eggs,” he told the old man bluntly. I tried to suppress the grin that was threatening to spill onto my lips. We were keeping vigil and it seemed nearly wrong to grin, no matter how comically helpful my little bear cub was attempting to be.

“Aegon?” the maester wheezed on the full name, stirring from whatever dream he’d been in the midst of—I hoped it was a pleasant one, set someplace warm and free of cold winds. Someplace like home.

He must have felt the change of weight on the mattress. “Is that you, Egg?”

“That’s what he used to call his brother when they were children,” Shireen commented from where she and Jeorgianna were now bent over “The Dance of Dragons”, looking up briefly to offer what she knew. She said it almost hesitantly, careful of my feelings and not wanting to overstep by teaching me about my own family.

She needn’t have worried. I took no offense. Viserys’s tales of our family history were woefully incomplete. I didn’t know Maester Aemon even existed until that day Jorah told me about him. And now, to be here, in his presence…my great-grandfather’s brother. I could barely fathom it. 

My son, however, had no trouble believing it. His trouble came from more practical concerns, starting with the mistake of name. Aemon was very attached to his and didn’t appreciate being mistaken for someone else.

“No, not Aegon. My name is Ae _mon_ ,” my son corrected the old man, shaking his head from side to side. He insisted, “I’m Aemon.”

“Aemon Targaryen?” the old man mumbled on his own name. “Son of Maekar…”

“No, Aemon _Mormont_ ,” the smaller Aemon replied, his manner bringing that amused smile to my lips as he added, strongly, “Son of Jorah.”

Well, _those_ words seemed to have some effect on Aemon Targaryen. 

“…eh?” His wrinkled face scrunched up, and his eyes, while still closed, were moving rapidly beneath the lids. His mind appeared to be clearing from a dream-fog as he said, with more clarity than we’d heard since we arrived at Castle Black, “What did you say?” 

He lifted his gnarled hand from the wool blankets and felt for the little boy who was sitting on his bed. His palm found my son’s hair, which he patted once, assuring himself that this was no dream. And then he ran his hand over the lines of Aemon’s face, down his forehead, little nose and cheeks…which Aemon accepted, as he was too curious about the old man who had his same name to be offended by the fact that Maester Aemon was attempting to “see” the little boy through his sense of touch. 

Maester Aemon asked, “Who are you?”

“Aemon,” my son sighed impatiently, casting a long-suffering glance my way. He was wearing an expression that belonged on a thirty-year-old man. 

“No, _I’m_ Aemon,” the old man was confident in that, despite the fact that an hour ago he’d been rambling on about a rip in his mother’s lace tablecloth and the sage-green color of the lily pads that floated around his favorite frog pond in King’s Landing. 

“I know that,” his namesake answered, just as confidently, as if he were the old man and Maester Aemon were the child. Aemon was fairly certain that _he_ was not the confused one. But then he gave himself away by asking, “Now what do you want eggs for, anyway?”

At that, a chuckle escaped my lips before I could stop it and I brought my hand up to my mouth to stifle it. But I noticed Gilly was ducking her head against her own son, hiding a wide, pretty smile and a wholly inappropriate fit of laughter herself. 

Oh, my son would pester Maester Aemon to _life_ , given half the chance.

I rose from the bench I’d been perched on. “Uncle?” I asked. “Are you awake?” 

I went to the side of his bed and placed my hand on the old man’s shoulder gently, as Jeor had done the night before. This time, he seemed to respond, cloudy eyes blinking open. 

But it was Aemon who held his attention. And Aemon who he addressed with his, “Mother’s been looking for you, Egg.” To which Aemon replied, “Did she lose the egg?” And then they continued trading confusion on names and eggs until I gave up trying to properly introduce my great-uncle to his nephew.

“Daenerys?” Jorah’s voice drifted through the room unexpectedly. 

I turned from my uncle to find him poking his head through the doorway, hand braced against the cold stones. His expression was preoccupied and grim, as seemed to be his natural state these days. And just like that, it chased away the grin that had been stealing across my own features. 

I would be happy when this was over and we were home again, where we could dismiss the cold chill of Westeros as nothing more than a strange dream. In Essos, my bear would wear all his smiles again.

_But what if you don’t make it home again?_ …I refused to give that cruel thought more than passing notice.

“Stannis has requested your presence in the Shieldhall,” he said to me, before turning to the wildling girl briefly to ask, “Gilly, can you look after the children?”

Gilly nodded, affable and willing. Jorah’s father said she had been one of Craster’s daughters and said she was likely stronger than all the men in this castle put together, to survive such a place and such a father. I remembered that man’s name from my vision years ago, when I watched crows picking at the carcass of a bear. And so much blood staining the snow…

_Stop it, Daenerys._ No, I wouldn’t allow my mind to wander in the direction of bears and blood and… no, I wouldn’t think on it at all.

After leaning down and pressing a parting kiss to the top of my own Aemon’s ginger head, I gave Maester Aemon’s shoulder one last squeeze before leaving his bedside. As I crossed the short distance of his sparse chambers, I brushed at the folds of my skirt absently, wondering what the self-anointed King of Westeros might want with me.

Oh, I could guess. 

And, based on that look still gracing his features, Jorah could guess too. For all my insistence that I was Daenerys Mormont, wife of a fisherman who lived in a white villa on the blue-green shore of the Jade Sea…here, in the west, there was no way to shake the name I’d been born with. And the name of Daenerys Targaryen was not one that Stannis could ignore. 

I took a deep breath as I joined Jorah in the hall.

### 

When we landed at White Harbor, I told Jorah that it was no homecoming. Almost as soon as I took my first step off the docks and my feet touched the hard, unforgiving ground of Westeros, I swear I heard voices. Perhaps not as clear as those voices that plagued my father. But the echoes reverberated from deep beneath the ground and then came back to me on the whisper of the cold wind, hitting me twice. 

It was all in my head, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something twisted in the land itself, old blood soaked into the ground, ancient and fervent voices trying their best to overwhelm me.

_I will take what is mine, in fire and in blood._

_Dragons plant no trees._

_I am Daenerys Stormborn, of House Targaryen!…_

_You are blood of the dragon. You must be the dragon._

_Fire cannot kill a dragon._

_Fire and blood, fire and blood, fire and blood…_

Jorah only had to touch me to break whatever spell the voices were weaving. Or voice, rather. As they spoke together, they had become a single voice. _My_ voice. Or near enough that I couldn’t tell the difference. Again, I thought of my father. I thought of his madness.

At White Harbor, with Jorah’s hand slipping to my waist, the voice vanished quickly. As fast as the sun vanished in winter, peeking up for only a few hours before disappearing beneath the southern horizon again. 

By the time we reached Castle Black, I’d banished that voice back to whatever pit it had crawled out from. I was not that voice and that voice was not me.

_You are my wife, you are Jeorgianna and Aemon’s mother, you are a woman who brings light to dark places and life to barren ground_ , Jorah’s reassurance kept me steady. His touch reminded me of what was real and what wasn’t.

But the Red Woman, Lady Melisandre of Asshai, need only look at me and I could hear the same voice screaming through my head again. It was as if she could hear it too—the strangled sound of some other Daenerys, who had chosen a far different path, calling down fire from the heavens, dressed in her father’s madness. And all followed by a terrible sound of bells…

_Dracarys!_

Jorah knew I was unsettled. And so before we entered the Shieldhall, where the others were gathered and speaking of the war to come, he stopped me, keeping hold of my wrist to hold me back for a moment. His touch, again, worked wonders and I felt steady, safe…calm. Even here, surrounded by swirling dangers.

He admitted, “It’s not Stannis I’m worried about.”

“I don’t like her either,” I answered, the Red Priestess on both of our minds, despite the fact that he hadn’t said her name. I added, “But we’ve dealt with a witch before.”

“By leaving her to her own devices,” he reminded me. “By leaving her side as soon as possible…”

_Only death pays for life…_

The memory came back, clear and sharp as always.

I’d been _so_ tempted to have Mirri Maz Duur work whatever unholy blood magic she might manage, to heal Khal Drogo and give me back the life I thought I wanted. I can remember the very words forming on my tongue, begging the witch to do it, whatever the cost.

I can remember everything about that moment so vividly. The sickly smell of the poultice on Khal Drogo’s festered wound, the lines of poison spreading out like branches of black beneath his skin. The heat of the desert, the buzz of flies and the stench of horses. 

Mirri Maz Duur’s coy look as she tipped her head, black eyes promising, “There is a spell.”

In that tent, I remember looking up at Jorah, searching his blue eyes, asking him silently what I should do. He wanted me to run. I could read it in his face. Qotho’s threats were not idle and as soon as Drogo passed from one world to the next, the others would join him. Jorah didn’t trust the bloodriders and he certainly didn’t trust the witch.

He said he’d take me away, that very night. We would run until I was safe. He would get me to safety. His eyes swore a blood oath that he’d never break.

And oh, he kept his oath. A hundred times over.

Looking back, I know the decision I made was the defining moment of my entire life. Had I chosen to stay, had I chosen to let that witch play at magic as she wanted…

Melisandre saw it too. She could see my past as easily as if it was reflected in a pool of standing water. Last night, she’d approached us at dinner, her scarlet robes too thin for the weather, her eyes flashing with the fire she claimed lived within her.

She stood before me, reaching out to grasp my chin and hold it fast, her eyes boring into mine, as if she was slipping secrets from my soul that I didn’t know myself.

“You defied your fate, Lady Mormont,” she stated, with a tone that bordered on a mother’s scolding. “The Lord of Light had plans for you and you defied his purpose.”

I pulled my chin away from her grasp with a sharp turn of my head, taking a step towards Jorah. His hand played lightly at the sword on his belt, his expression daring the woman to say another word or touch me again. She broke her stare with me to send a cold, calculating smile towards my husband. He wasn’t charmed by her sultry ways. His expression remained the same. Melisandre shrugged and tossed her scarlet head before moving on. 

_I would defy your lord a thousand times…_

Now, in the hallway outside the entrance to the Shieldhall, Jorah’s fingers curled at my wrist before moving to my hand to press my palm gently.

“Are you ready?” he wondered. I took another deep breath as I nodded. Jorah should know my answer to that question by heart. 

So long as he stood beside me, I was ready for anything.


	15. With Friends and Foes Alike

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve worked my way back to weekend updates! That only took about four weeks lol
> 
> So this chapter went a little long again and it has an unacceptable lack of dragon-bear-cub-adorableness, I know. But next week’s update will be Jorah’s POV so I’ll make it up to you. Promise Xo
> 
> Also, I heart the Onion Knight! I hadn’t planned on his POV but then it was a natural fit for what I needed and ohmygod, writing in Ser Davos’s voice might be one of my favorite things ever :)

**_Davos_ **

If someone had told me, when I was just a wee little scamp runnin’ up and down the dirty alleyways of Flea Bottom and tryin’ not to steal anything that would get me forced into the stocks or worse, that someday I’d be standin’ here, a lord and knight both, and Hand of a fuckin’ King, facin’ down an enemy that no one had faced for a thousand years…I’d have said they were stark ravin’ mad.

But nothin’ fucks you harder than time, does it? And there I was, in Castle Black with the rest of them, plannin’ for the absolute worst. 

We spoke of the battle to come and the dead, as there was little else that might hold our attention quite so well.

“Two of the rangers spotted a snowstorm moving down from the Bay through the northern half of the Haunted Forest,” the Lord Commander relayed the latest news from his scouts. “But it’s moving too slowly to be a natural storm.”

“Do they march on Eastwatch or Castle Black?” Lord Howland Reed wondered, as that had been our concern from the beginning. There was a skeleton force stationed at Eastwatch and there’d been talk of bolsterin’ it but the Red Woman was convinced that they’d be comin’ for Castle Black.

She’d seen it in the flames, she said, smug as always. 

_And the trees shall bleed out under the terrors of Night and the old Gods shall bear witness to their own demise_ , she said this part with pleasure, as apparently there was no love lost between her Lord and the tree-gods.

A younger me would have laughed off her nonsense and urged Stannis to do the same. But by that time, I’d seen too much. That night Renly Baratheon died was seared into my damn brain. Not a man alive would be able to forget somethin’ like that. So I wouldn’t be the one to argue with the sorceress. 

Her confidence in her visions bordered on certainty and she’d had quite a few of late, some she shared with all the lords, some she shared only with Stannis. It was those secret visions I wondered about, for they must have disturbed Stannis’s peace of mind. When I arrived in the Shieldhall that morning, he was in a foul mood. We’d laid out a map of the North over the long table at the front of the hall and he just stared at it, pickin’ at the pieces set on the board and glarin’ at them miserably.

We’d added falcon figurines this morning, as the Knights of the Vale had been promised within the week by Lord Petyr Baelish. This was all Sansa Stark’s doing though no one knew how she’d managed it. We didn’t ask either, just happy to have the men.

Sansa and Jon had returned from their travels overnight, leaving their little brother, Rickon, to wait out the battle at Winterfell. He was too young, Sansa insisted, and there had to be a Stark at Winterfell, Jon was clear on that. They brought his direwolf with them though, as a beast of that size and strength could not be spared. 

Not when there were dead men headed our way.

Sansa stood beside her brother now, in the Shieldhall, both dressed in black and silver. The colors suited them both. These two young wolves represented the resilience of House Stark and the direwolves that lay at their feet only gave them a fiercer air. Sansa’s arms were crossed over her chest and Jon was brooding, as always. 

“He’ll send them,” Sansa said sternly, when Stannis doubted Littlefinger’s word. And her steel-edged voice left no room for argument. She was emulating the other scarlet-haired woman in the room, though without the edge of mysticism that always hovered around Melisandre like a black veil.

“It still won’t be enough, Your Grace,” Jon shook his head, his dark eyes made even darker by his sullen brooding. 

His sister cast a frown his way, “Well, it certainly won’t hurt us any, Jon.”

“No, the boy’s right. Even if Cersei Lannister suddenly saw fit to look beyond her pirate alliance and her tricks with wildfire and send her armies north, it wouldn’t matter,” Mance Rayder, the former wildling king, spoke up next. He sat upon one of the hall benches, mug of ale balanced beside him. He sighed, hands restin’ on both his knees and shakin’ his head ruefully, “Not with all the men and women in Westeros could you defend against what’s coming.”

“Would you have us run south then?” Stannis wondered, with bite in his words. There was tension between these two men, still unresolved, “That’s the wildling way, isn’t it?”

“It’s the _wise_ man’s way,” Mance replied smartly, while takin’ no offense. He’d lost much of his defiance after his defeat. The act of bendin’ the knee had broken somethin’ inside him. He grinned darkly as he added, “But I don’t see any wise men in this room. Or we’d all be halfway to Dorne by now.”

No—no one in the room was runnin’. Stannis and the Red Woman, Mance Rayder, the Starks, Sam Tarly, Howland Reed, Lord Commander Mormont—we were all here to make a stand. Likely, our final one.

“We have to keep them north of the Wall,” Samwell Tarly rarely deviated from this line of thought. He’d been adamant for days now. “If they bring down the Wall, it’s finished.”

“The Wall’s stood for a thousand years, Tarly,” the Lord Commander sighed. He had to have faith in the Wall, as its protection had been the aim of the Night’s Watch since the damn thing was built. “It will not fail this time.”

“Maybe,” Sam answered with a shrug of his large shoulders, less confident. “I’m just saying the Wall’s our only defense and that’s what needs to be kept intact.”

“And if they breach the wall?” Sansa wondered.

“We don’t have the men,” Jon sighed on the same blunt truth that he’d been sayin’ over and over again since Hardhome. Mance had been up there too. And at Jon’s words, he merely nodded his agreement and took a long drink.

Stannis said little, still rattled by whatever the Red Woman was stirrin’ up before we all got there. She’d been whisperin’ secrets in his ear for years but it was only in the last few days that he seemed to shy away from them. From _her_. So those visions, whatever they were, must be grim indeed.

And there was enough to be grim about even without a sorceress’s prophecies. Jon and Mance we’re right. We didn’t have the numbers. The map showed us as mere pawns, as we were. There was little strategy in what we were about to do. Just raw survival. And a fool’s hope.

Still, we had less men than we’d like.

_Fewer._ I reminded myself.

“The Tyrells should be here by evenin’, yer Grace,” I reminded him but Stannis was still lost in his own thoughts, pickin’ up the stag figurine to stare at it for a long moment before putting it down again.

The optimism in my voice was misplaced but it was my duty to give it, even as the hour grew late and the battle drew close. It was my voice that he heard from his right side. And _hers_ that he heard on his left.

“My King,” the Red Woman purred at his ear, moving to him again, sliding her hands smoothly up his arm, as she leaned closer, that red hair fallin’ against the side of his face. “There’s still time. The Lord of Light…”

“Don’t say it again,” he growled at her, low enough that I might’ve been the only one to hear it. 

Whatever she’d suggested to him, while they were alone earlier—he was havin’ none of it. 

I’d noticed that she was fallin’ out of his favor for some time, though it had become more obvious in the last few days. The North didn’t agree with her, despite her haughty insistence that her internal flame could melt away any cold. Stannis turned to her, nearly seethin’, as he said, “I’ve heard you out. Your Lord will have to find another way.”

“The Lord does not bow to Stannis Baratheon,” she pulled her hands down from his shoulders, steppin’ away, as those eyes snapped wildly on his refusal.

“I am your Lord, remember?” Stannis answered, but almost flatly, as I’m not sure he ever truly believed it in the first place. His tone mocked her prior claims, “Your God lives within me, doesn’t he?”

“Not if you intend to disobey him,” she replied, with fire.

I looked between them both, keeping my gods- _damned_ mouth shut this time. I’d had enough of prison cells to last me a lifetime. If they were fightin’ between themselves, I’d rather they resolve it without turnin’ their attention on me. I wasn’t the brightest man in the world but I never made the same mistake twice.

They both went very silent, with the Red Woman stewin’ by the fireplace and Stannis’s hands still runnin’ over those glorified chess pieces. The look in his eye said he was tempted to scatter them across the Shieldhall floor.

The fire snapped on kindling and the hush of the room stressed like a taut wire. The tension in the hall needed to be scattered as well, or I feared we might all break under it.

But it only got worse.

At that moment, the door to the Shieldhall opened wide, with the sound of iron scrapin’ cold stone, as Ser Jorah Mormont returned, this time with his silver-haired wife in tow. Stannis finally looked up from the map, takin’ in the sight of the Targaryen woman with an impassable expression.

He tapped his fingers on the long table three times while he watched them enter, takin’ a spot by the frost-covered windows, where Jorah’s father stood. The Mormont men flanked Daenerys, towering over her small stature—and the message sent by that gesture alone was clear. 

The bears always protect their own. Here they stood. With her husband on one side and his father on the other, Daenerys waited on the king to speak.

When Stannis called the realm to Castle Black, he’d takin’ a vow and given his word to lay down arms against any man or woman who came to aid the fight at the Wall, no matter who they were or what they’d done in the past. Even if Jaime-Fuckin’-Lannister showed up, we’d be honor-bound to accept his help.

And to be honest, we’d be more than happy to have it. We could use that golden boy’s sword hand, even if he only had one good one left.

But in his _wildest_ dreams, Stannis had not thought to see Daenerys Targaryen here, on these shores, in these halls. None of us did. No one had known her whereabouts or what had happened to her…except perhaps Jeor Mormont, who, truth be told, seemed less surprised to find her arrivin’ with his son than by their appearance on this side of the sea.

And _that_ connection complicated Stannis’s feelings on the matter, as he had found an ally in the Lord Commander that could not be severed, not now, not if we wanted to be successful at sendin’ this enemy back beyond the realms of men. Daenerys Targaryen was the Lord Commander’s daughter by law. And she was Ser Jorah Mormont’s wife, who himself was a warrior that we needed as much as every other sword in this frozen shithole.

But the woman had more claim to the Iron Throne than the five kings who’d been fightin’ over it for the last however many years combined. She was the blood of the dragon and her family had held the throne for generations. Stannis wasn’t a man to turn a blind eye to such facts.

Did she want it? Would she add her claim to the others and join the morass after the battle against the dead was done? She arrived with no army. She arrived with a child in her arms and another at her skirts. She demurred to her husband here, and his father, giving no indication that she was interested in anything other than makin’ sure her family stayed together. 

If I was a bettin’ man, I’d say she had no interest in the bloody game of politics. But maybe that’s just my own weariness talkin’. Dank prison cells and sun-bleached days stranded on the open sea can make a person think about takin’ themselves out of the game altogether.

Either way, Stannis had to hear it from her own lips. That’s why he’d called her to the Shieldhall.

He’d never been one for pretense or small-talk so he stated it plainly, no greeting, no pleasantries, just a simple, “Lady Mormont, I need to know your intentions.”

“Intentions, my lord?” Daenerys replied. Her tone didn’t play innocent but everyone in that room could tell that she was weary of his questions even before they began.

“Don’t play coy, my lady,” Stannis’s scowl was cold and domineering. But she must be used to sullen men, having willingly wed herself to a Mormont.

Daenerys exchanged a weighty glance with her husband. Jorah had not been pleased that his wife was called to this meeting. He’d been ready to refuse Stannis when the request was made. He only changed his mind after a few short words with his father, who I assume urged him to play nice with Stannis. Jeor Mormont had a cool head and an eye for knowin’ when and where to take a stand…and when to let it go.

I could sympathize.

But Jorah was not pleased that Stannis gave Daenerys any notice at all. He didn’t like the man’s questions or that scowl on his face. The knight’s powerful stance and the way his sword hand lingered on the hilt of his weapon betrayed his wiliness to throw away his own life, if his lady’s was in danger.

But Daenerys’s strength matched her husband’s, as she stood fast before Stannis, answerin’ him with the plainness he asked for, “If you mean to ask whether or not I will claim my father’s throne and take back all that was stolen from my family…my answer is no.”

“I have a hard time believing that,” Stannis responded honestly, having been on the path to King’s Landing too long to understand that there were other ways to go. He asked her, “Would you swear fealty to me?”

“I would not,” Daenerys answered firmly, but not with any malice in her voice. She explained, “But I will not swear fealty to anyone in Westeros. Across the sea, we have no king.”

“Hear, hear,” Mance Rayder muttered at her words, the idea of true freedom still written across his heart in blazing letters, despite recent events. The Red Woman gave the wildling king a dark look but Mance just raised his mug of ale in her direction before sipping though a wry smile.

“Not even if I pardoned your husband’s crimes and gave him back the lordship of Bear Island?” Stannis wondered, as if dangling fruit before them. 

Daenerys gave another glance towards Jorah, this time to gauge his reaction. Her answer to Stannis’s question was written on her face—the woman didn’t want anything but to be left alone—but she waited for Jorah, as it was not a decision for her to make alone. 

“Bear Island is my cousin’s,” Jorah spoke up for them both. “You would do well to leave it in Lyanna’s capable hands.”

The Lord Commander was nodding in agreement at his son’s words. The fierce little she-bear had not arrived at Castle Black yet but she and her Bear Island fighters were expected within the next day or so. She’d shown her mettle at the Battle for Winterfell. She was as good a fighter as half the men in this room. Better than me, that’s for damn sure. She was a credit to House Mormont. And if I were her cousin, I wouldn’t dare take her Island from her either.

“Very well,” Stannis allowed. He seemed primed to say something that might bind him to action, after all this was done...but Daenerys spoke first.

“I will not swear fealty to you, Lord Stannis,” she repeated, but then continued in a softer manner. “But I will not deny your claim on it either. It is yours to take, if you wish. And I hope that should you win, you bring Westeros into a time of peace and prosperity. But this is not my home and I intend to leave it as soon as we’ve forced your dead men back into their graves again.”

“If…,” Samwell Tarly amended the lady’s words, speakin’ up as if in afterthought. We all looked at him as the simple word seemed pressed with deeper meaning. The look on Tarly’s face said he might not have meant to say it out loud. But he continued, ramblin’ through his further explanation, as always, “It’s just—the Wall, you see. It’s…well, it’s not a natural wall, of course. Not completely. We all know that. And it’s important. They wouldn’t have built it, if it wasn’t.” 

He seemed hesitant to share the rest, as I don’t know that he was quite sure what it meant yet, but after a moment’s contemplation, he decided to risk it, “I’ve read it in three different places now and I can’t make it all out…but there’s a prophecy about a Three-Eyed Raven perched above the Wall…” 

“And…?” the Lord Commander prodded, after Sam’s pause went on a little long.

“Well, it’s said…that so long as the Three-Eyed Raven perches above it, the Wall will stand and, if the Wall stands, the Long Night will bleed into dawn. At first, I thought the three-eyed raven was just that, some sort of mythical bird or some other nonsense the old maesters were going on about. But now I’m not so sure…” 

I’d told someone once that prophesies don’t win wars, soldiers do. On the ground, in the mud. Or trudging through the blindin’, fuckin’ snows, in this case. I still believed it. But I’d seen enough to know that maybe it wasn’t the whole story.

Lady Melisandre scoffed at Sam Tarly’s words, her tinkling half-laugh echoin’ off the old stones of the hall, “The Old Gods will not win this battle, _Lord_ Tarly. It will go to the Lord of Light, to glorify his name—” she turned to Stannis, imploring in her exotic voice, “And you need only reach out and…”

“I told you no, _damn_ you!” Stannis’s words boomed through the Shieldhall. He rarely raised his voice, even in the middle of battle, so the effect was harrowing. All voices fell silent and all other tensions vanished, petty and grave alike, leavin’ behind only Stannis, squared off against his formidable Red Woman.

She breathed in deeply, her posture perfect, her chin raised with such defiance. 

“Your fires will be snuffed out, my lord, if you continue to refuse him,” she declared, her own voice kept low and dangerous, before turnin’ on her heel to seek out the gaze of the Targaryen woman. 

Her grin turned wicked. Her words were for Stannis but her eyes were locked on Daenerys. She said smugly, “Only death pays for life.”

Daenerys blanched at those words and her husband seemed just as affected, his hand fallin’ from his sword hilt, stunned. Melisandre’s words meant something more to them than to the rest of us. But the Red Woman didn’t wait for any reply, castin’ one last glance towards Stannis, all darkness and malcontent, before sweepin’ out of the room like a scarlet-red windstorm.

Stannis watched her go with that familiar scowl now plastered on his face, speakin’ to me without lookin’ my way. His words were a command, fiercely given, “You make sure to watch the Red Woman, Ser Davos.”

I nodded immediately with a mumbled “yes, yer Grace,” astonished to hear those words fallin’ from Stannis’s lips. I’d waited to hear them for _years_ , as I’d never trusted her. Not once. I almost asked him to explain what had changed, what her Lord was demanding, and why he wouldn’t give it, even if it wasn’t my place to do so.

But before I could say another word, a tremor ran through the halls that diverted the attention of everyone in that room. Sansa Stark’s eyes widened, the direwolves stirred, Jorah’s hand reached out to take Daenerys’s forearm and Stannis watched a few of his chess pieces fall on their sides far too easily.

Only one thing could cause that tremor. The outer gate, the gate leading to the North from the tunnels below, was opening. 

“What in Seven Hells…?” Lord Commander Mormont managed.

But explanations came soon enough. The door to the Shieldhall was scrapin’ open once more, with Dolorous Edd makin’ a glum, subdued entrance. We’d found that Edd did everything glumly, even if the boys said he’d recently been in better spirits than ever.

_Getting killed by a dead man might just be the highlight of my entire life_. I’d heard Edd say myself last night, with only a hint of insincerity.

But the news he brought into the Shieldhall was anything but glum and it had Jon and Sansa Stark rushing from the hall immediately, with Howland Reed not far behind them.

Brandon Stark and Meera Reed, both given up for dead years ago, had arrived at Castle Black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorta off-topic but the Davos POV is making me think about it. I’ve always watched a lot of period dramas. Like…a lot. And so has my sister, who has been my GoT-buddy from the very beginning (S1E1 to the bitter, _bitter_ end). So for the longest time, we referred to the Onion Knight as Mossie, Jorah as Preston and Stannis as Charles when we were discussing the show (because of “Falling for a Dancer”, “Wives & Daughters” and “Firelight”). Like “oh my god, if Dany doesn’t go for Preston, I’ll take him, thank you very much” and “oh, Charles, do you really think trusting the red woman is a good idea?” and “awwww Shireen’s teaching Mossie to read” *heart eyes*
> 
> Anyway, the point is “Falling for a Dancer” is a great (if sort of soapy) Irish miniseries and Mossie is basically Jorah in 1930s County Cork (#Loyalty #AlwaysThereForTheGirl). So if you’re a fan of Liam Cunningham and the Jorah/Dany dynamic but would like to have a happy ending to look forward to, go find it and watch it. That’s all I’m sayin’ <3


	16. And Now Our Watch Begins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve got an idea for the next chapter that I’m about 85-90% percent sure will work out really well. Because y'see, the thing is, I could probably write 25,000 words on the battle between the living and the dead just because there’s so much going on…but I’m ready to go home to Essos, so I’m hoping to resolve it in one, reasonably-worded chapter. That’s the plan anyway.
> 
> I’m still hopeful to post another update next week right on schedule but if I don’t, just know that it’s all the fault of the Night King and his zombies #HereLiesAWriterGirl #BrainsEatenByZombieHorde
> 
> But also, have I mentioned that you guys are the BEST lately? Because you are. The #Jorleesi fandom is literally my favorite corner of the internet right now. It’s a flower garden in the middle of an eternally raging trashfire. Much love to all <3
> 
> ETA: Five lovely, beautiful, incredibly emotional illustrations have been added to this chapter, my dears. FIVE. Because salzrand is a gift to our fandom <3 <3 <3 Also, I've died of the angsty #Jorleesifeels. Dead. #RIPMe

**_Jorah_ **

Castle Black hummed with a restless energy. 

It’s always the same before a battle. I remember the tense hours before we crossed the breach at Pyke and how my whole body ached with anticipation to see the end of the Greyjoys’ rebellion decided, one way or another. The siege had gone on too long and something had to happen, something had to _break_. 

That day, the breaking point had been Thoros of Myr, kicking his heels against his steed and charging across the breach with a holler, his flaming sword raised high and spinning above his head wildly. I will never forget that sight, as I followed him in, caught up in what I thought was the bravest thing I’d ever witnessed.

“Bravery? No. I was drunk, Mormont. So drunk I can’t remember crossing the breach,” the priest admitted to me the night before, when I happened to cross paths with him just outside the common hall and we fell into reminiscing. I was surprised to see him at Castle Black, even more surprised to see him still alive.

He held a wineskin in his hand and smiled in a self-deprecating manner as he slurred, “Truly.”

And then he drained his wineskin, intent on facing the upcoming battle in much the same way as Pyke. Perhaps he was wise in this. It might be better if we could forget the things that we were riding out to meet.

For foolhardy as it may be, a decision had been made and we were riding for the godswood in the Haunted Forest this very day. We would ride out to meet them instead of waiting behind the Wall, as that appeared to be the only way to make sure the Wall continued to stand. There was irony in this, but the dry kind that failed to give anyone peace of mind.

_The Three-Eyed Raven must remain perched above the Wall._

It was not only Sam’s books that said these words now, but Howland Reed’s daughter too. She spoke the words with a painful urgency in her otherwise level-headed voice that begged to be heeded. The crippled Stark boy agreed silently, letting Meera speak for him, as she repeated what Benjen Stark had told her. 

_Ancient spells carved into the Wall itself, a god living in Brandon Stark’s head, the Night King’s mad desire to root out the Three-Eyed Raven and destroy him once and for all._

Melisandre, the red sorceress, argued against it, saying that any victory must go to the Lord of Light, but Stannis was no longer heeding her counsel.

The plan devised was simple enough—the Stark boy would be brought to the godswood to draw out the White Walkers from the horde. And the rest us would protect him and the Wall with our lives, hoping our dismal numbers could withstand an onslaught ten times larger. 

The Tyrells had arrived two nights before last, bolstering our numbers substantially, but not with as many as we hoped. A few of their bannermen neglected to answer the call, some from fear of the dead, some from fear of the Lannisters. The Tarlys, in particular, were a surprise…to everyone but Sam, who knew firsthand how petty and cruel his father could be. 

I happened to be in the armory with Sam when the Tyrells arrived. They brought a package from Randyll Tarly, who asked that it be delivered to his son at Castle Black. When Sam opened the long, wooden box, he found Heartsbane, the sword of House Tarly, lying within, with a short note attached:

_Samwell – Tell Stannis I sent what I could spare and no more. Tell him you will represent the Tarlys in this battle. And then tell him that the box is for the return of the sword and your worthless body, after you fall in battle, having failed us once again. -R. Tarly_

“The joke’s on him really,” Sam mumbled, after reading the note. I knew something of the difficulties that can befall a father and son but this…Randyll Tarly treated his horses better than he treated his son. Sam shrugged it off, saying darkly, “There likely won’t be anyone left to send it back…”

Lyanna and the rest of the Bear Islanders came in soon after the Tyrells. The Knights of the Vale would be riding through Mole’s Town within the hour. And that would be the last of them, as Cersei Lannister had sent a raven saying she would be pleased to receive Stannis’s head on a platter after he was done playing games in the North but she would not be leaving King’s Landing even if the Red Keep was burning down around her.

We would ride out with the numbers we had, trusting in fate or whatever gods would listen to grant us the mercy of a quick death, if nothing else.

The children kept me company in the stables while Daenerys and my father helped Maester Aemon hobble down from his chambers and into a wagon that would take the old man to Mole’s Town. He had rallied in the last few days, deciding not to die after all. Not yet. But he was still very weak and frail. Should the Wall be breached and Castle Black fall to the enemy, he would not be able to escape in time.

We’d decided that Daenerys and the children would go with him. Shireen Baratheon and her mother and Gilly and Little Sam would be leaving for the village soon as well, if not already. 

Mole’s Town was only a few leagues south of Castle Black so it wasn’t much of a head start but if the battle turned against us, I made Daenerys promise me that she would take the children and ride south as fast as she could.

“I promise,” she told me last night, speaking the words she knew I wanted to hear.

“I mean it, Daenerys,” I begged her. “Run and don’t look back.”

“Are those the Mormont words, now?” she asked, almost cleverly. 

“If my family words get you killed…” I didn’t finish the thought.

“ _Our_ family words,” she reminded me softly and let her eyes speak the rest. 

_Here we stand. All of us. Together._

I’d rather she run now but I knew better than to bring it up again. And she knew better than to argue with me further, knowing that I needed this promise from her, even if we both knew it was mere pretense. 

If the dead brought down the Wall, there wouldn’t be anywhere to run. 

But if I died tonight, I needed to believe that Daenerys and the children would survive. I don’t think I could manage to willingly ride towards an army of dead men otherwise. Not even if I was as drunk as Thoros of Myr at Pyke. 

In the stables, Jeorgianna stayed close to me as I saddled the same coal black stallion that we’d brought from White Harbor. He was well-mannered for a stallion, gently accepting a few winter berries that Jeorgianna had brought from the kitchens. He nuzzled them out of her outstretched palm, sniffing at their tart flavor with his velvety nose.

Aemon was running up and down the length of the hay-strewn stable, his stuffed bear held under his arm tightly, as always, greeting every mount in the place with the same, cheery, “Hello, pretty horse.”

Aemon was too young to recognize the spark of restlessness in the air or the dangers we would soon face. We’d been in this place less than a week but he’d acclimated to Castle Black as well as if he were at home, exploring and asking questions. With a multitude of horses and armored men, Valryian swords and dragonglass, a castle of stone towers and a Wall of ice that stretched up seven hundred feet high—Castle Black was no dismal place to my son. 

It was exciting and new and he didn’t care about the whispers of monsters, because I was here and his mother and Jeorgianna and now his grandfather too. And with the pure trust of a child, he knew we would all keep him safe, no matter what happened.

_I swear by the Old Gods and the New…_

But Jeorgianna was old enough to know what was coming and why she, Aemon and her mother would be travelling to Mole’s Town in the next hour while I remained here. She was doing her best to be brave and accept whatever came, like a true daughter of Bear Island. And having so very recently met my cousin, Lyanna, I think she was trying to emulate the young woman’s legendary resilience, which was…nearly impossible for even grown men to do.

And Jeorgianna was still just a little girl. _My_ little girl.

“Papa?” she asked, as she reached up and pulled on my wrist gauntlet lightly. 

“What is it, lass?” I answered, looking down to find her features laced in a quiet misery. Feeding the horse those winter berries had been a distraction but they were all gone now and she stared up at me with anxious eyes.

“Why can’t you come with us?” she wondered, in a very small voice. 

I could feel her fears as if they were needles in my own skin, and I wished I could pluck them out of her head as easily as cinching a belt on a saddle. I pulled the one I worked on tight before bending down to her level, hands squeezing at both her shoulders briefly as I crouched down before her.

“I’ll be with you soon,” I promised her, giving her a reassuring smile. “But your grandfather and I have to ride above the Wall today. And I want you and your brother and your mother safe if anything happens.”

“But what could happen?” From that shadow in her blue eyes, she could certainly guess the answer to that question herself. But she was hoping I’d contradict it.

My daughter’s wide-eyed look, so plaintive, so worried, could break my heart too easily. So I looped my arm around her little waist and brought her close. I breathed in deeply, before answering. 

“You know what could never happen?” I asked her instead.

“What?” she replied, as she clasped her hands in front of her. It was an unconscious habit. She always clasped her hands together when she was shy or nervous…or afraid. 

“I could _never_ love anyone more than I love you, Jeorgianna,” I spoke the words strongly, pressing a kiss to her forehead before releasing her again. She stayed close, grinning at my words, despite all the many fears and notions still rattling around in her head.

“I love you too, Papa,” she answered.

“Well, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” I reminded her, having told her the same many times before, albeit at home, where the sun was shining off blue waters and her mother’s roses were in full bloom.

But she nodded, unwilling to second-guess anything that I said. Someday, she might. And gods be good, I hoped I lived to see that day, even if it meant my daughter had grown old enough to doubt her father’s word. 

I pressed another kiss to her temple while pulling her close to me again.

Aemon, in one of his mad dashes up and down the stable, must have noticed us, for I felt little arms go around my other side as Aemon briefly joined our embrace, hugging us both as best he could. He leaned over, fingers stretching out as far as possible to touch Jeorgianna too. But then he was gone again, too busy making friends with every equine creature in the Castle Black stables to waste too much time on anything else.

This time, however, he ran too far. He was headed out the stable door, into the snowy courtyard, where thousands of soldiers were bustling about, with no time or patience to watch out for a little boy who might be running around at their feet. I would never understand where my son got his energy. I scrabbled to my feet again, ready to run after him.

But he was stopped before I reached him. He was scooped up at the stable entrance by my father’s strong grasp, as he entered with Daenerys at the exact moment Aemon might have escaped the threshold.

“And where are you headed, little bear?” Father asked Aemon, bouncing his grandson up onto the crook of his left arm. Aemon found his regular perch there, with a wide grin, happy to be captured by his grandfather. Both children had taken to my father immediately, accepting him as easily and as naturally as he accepted them. 

They might have known each other for years instead of barely a week. And none of the gruffness that I knew so well as a boy could be found on Jeor Mormont’s features while he held one of his grandchildren in his arms. The Old Bear seemed to forget how to growl when Jeorgianna or Aemon were around.

“Oh!” Aemon exclaimed, as he suddenly realized that his stuffed bear had tumbled from his arms when his grandfather scooped him up. But Daenerys had already located the wayward bear, bending down to pick the toy up off the stable floor. She brushed at the bear’s cloth body, cleaning off a few sprigs of hay and grain before passing the bear to my father, who then passed the little thing back into Aemon’s most willing hands. 

“Grandfather?” Aemon then asked, as if he’d been thinking on the forthcoming question for a long time. He held onto his stuffed bear tightly, saying, “Is this what real bears look like?”

“Not quite, Aemon.” My father chuckled, “You’ve never seen a real bear before?”

Aemon shook his head, in a melancholy way. He sighed, “No, never.”

“Well, don’t look so glum about it, Aemon. I’ve never seen one either,” Daenerys chided our son, laughing at the crestfallen turn of his young features. She reached out again, to brush at his bear’s face, removing the rest of the stubborn hay caught in the fabric.

“Jorah, your wife and children have never seen a bear?” Father raised an eyebrow. He was shaking his head, but in a light manner, with mock displeasure for Aemon’s sake. “I’m not sure how the old Mormonts would feel about that.”

“I know how Cousin Lyanna would feel,” Jeorgianna spoke up from my side knowingly. My daughter already had a good handle on Lyanna Mormont’s feelings on many things, even on such brief acquaintance. But Lyanna seemed to have that effect on everyone. My father, Daenerys and even Aemon were all nodding at Jeogianna’s words. They all knew what Lyanna’s reaction would be.

_She wouldn’t be pleased._

But I was pleased. Not about the bears, of course—the Jade Sea didn’t have many bears roaming its coast but it was still a shame that my children had never seen one. Someday, maybe.

But I was pleased that my father and I were speaking again, even if we continued to avoid certain subjects. I was pleased that he was holding his grandson in his arms and that they were smiling at each other. I was pleased that Daenerys felt comfortable in his presence and that Jeor Mormont seemed to have warmed to her, a Targaryen no less, despite all my fears that he would turn his back on us as soon as we reached Castle Black.

And for a moment, in that stable, as we all stood there, and my father regaled Aemon with tales of the fierce brown and black bears that lived in the green forests above Mormont Keep, and how you could see them catching fish in the stream or rolling in the meadowland beneath crisp autumn skies, I nearly forgot the rest of it—why we were here, what was about to happen. 

_Nearly._

While Father was speaking, Daenerys wandered over to me and I opened my arms, instinctively. She walked into my embrace, sinking against my chest, holding me close, just as my arms wrapped around her, my chin coming to rest on the top of her head.

“I’ll see you when this is over,” she vowed, with her cheek resting near my heart, leaving no room for doubt.

I said nothing in reply, not trusting my voice, but continued to hold her tightly, letting the silence speak for me. We hadn’t been separated, not for a single night, since we ran away from Drogo’s bloodriders. I didn’t know how to say farewell to her. I didn’t want to try.

_I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you…_

_I’ll always love you…_

_Until my last breath…_

In the end, I just held her. And when it was time for them to leave, I kissed her goodbye. I kissed the children too, as I lifted them both up into the wagon, Jeorgianna first and then Aemon…and then I pulled Daenerys back impulsively and kissed her again.

“I love you, Daenerys,” I murmured against her lips, bringing my forehead to rest against hers.

“No more than I love you,” she answered with a hitch in her voice, stealing one more kiss from my lips before she left my side, her eyes not leaving mine until the very last moment. She joined the children on the wagon bed, moving Aemon to her lap, while Jeorgianna clung to her mother’s side, holding back her tears admirably.

She wasn’t the only one. 

I watched the wagon until it passed beyond the first rise in the King’s Road. Afterwards, I felt my father’s hand on my shoulder as he said only, “Come, son.”

But I lingered a little longer, keeping hold of that moment for as long as I could. 

_I’ll see you when this is over_ , Daenerys’s words echoed in the air around me, competing with all that restless energy that was now reaching a fevered pitch, with the sound of armor being strapped on, swords sheathed and horses snorting in the cold air, stepping sideways, anxious to ride. 

Something had to break the tension. And soon. 

“Ser Jorah!” came a voice behind me and I turned to find Samwell Tarly shuffling across the yard towards me. The big man’s cheeks were red from the weather. When he reached me, he was already out of breath but managed, “So you’ve sent Lady Mormont and the children to Mole’s Town, then?”

“Aye, they just left,” I answered.

“Gilly too,” Sam nodded, his gaze turning wistful and distracted, but he shook his head, rousing himself. “Anyway, I wanted to give you this, Ser. My father may be a cruel man but he isn’t wrong. I would be useless with this…”

I looked down to see his arms stretched out, offering Heartsbane.

“It’s your family sword, Sam,” I protested immediately. “I can’t…”

“I can’t lift it,” Sam admitted, disappointed but unashamed. He knew his own limitations well. I imagine his father took great pleasure in reminding him at every opportunity. He continued, “I offered it to your father first but he said there’d be no better hand to wield it than yours.”

I couldn’t think of what to say. To Sam…or to Father, had he not already gone to join the brothers at the tunnel. But I accepted the sword, unsheathing it from the scabbard to see that brilliant sheen of Valyrian steel staring back at me.

_Heartsbane._ The name was too fitting and I found myself swallowing hard. 

“Thank you, Sam,” I said finally, adding, almost as an oath, “I’ll wield it to protect those we love.”

He nodded, gladly. He might have said more but at that moment, the restlessness of the last few hours suddenly broke, laid waste in an instant with a single, horrifying sound, repeated twice and loud enough to be heard leagues away. It was a sound not heard for a thousand years.

The horn at Castle Black blew three blasts.


	17. Songs of Ice and Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5,100 words later…I survived. Barely. That was close. Next time, I think I’ll just let Aemon handle it #LittleBearVsTheNightKing #NoContest #TryToResistHimBlueGuy #NotPossible
> 
> Honestly, I’m a little nervous about the response to this chapter, because it’s a monster chapter, with a lot going on and I switched to 3rd person POV with a time jump prologue and lines of poetry and just…like I said last week, I think I could write a whole novella on The Long Night. 
> 
> What can I say? I find the impending end of the world and those who try to stop it to be a terribly delicious story. With no subversion necessary ;)
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy! Back to Jorleesi family fluff next chapter <3

Almost fifteen years to the day after the Battle at Castle Black, Maester Samwell Tarly of Winterfell and the Free North, sent a leather-bound book of collected tales and songs across the sea to Aemon Mormont, with a short letter tucked between its first two pages:

_Aemon:_

_This, at long last, is the final version of the Collected Songs of Ice and Fire that we discussed on your last visit and which I’ve spent the better part of a decade working on. Your family features heavily in its pages, as you well know._

_The collection will never be complete, as there are already more songs about that night at Castle Black and the Forest above and Mole’s Town below than could fill ten volumes. And I don’t doubt that the minstrels will be singing some of these songs for hundreds of years, long after all of us are gone. If Queen Shireen has her way, the one about your mother, in particular, will never be forgotten._

_I hope you enjoy the collection. Give my best to your mother and father. And always good to hear that the Old Bear is still growling. Tell him that Tarly forbids him to die, at least not anytime soon._

_Yours,_  
_Sam_

Aemon set the letter to one side. He took his time, thumbing through the illuminated pages. Every margin was scrolled with an artist’s hand to create twisting, braided borders of ice spiders, blue roses, direwolves and snowflakes. The songs themselves were written in flowing script, with tales that might be mistaken for fairy stories penned beneath them. For half the things that happened that night were unbelievable, to say the least.

Aemon remembered some of it but not much. He’d been so little. But he smiled as his eyes alighted on one of the full-page illustrations that Sam had commissioned, this one of his father riding into the Haunted Forest with Heartsbane in his grasp and Jon’s direwolf, Ghost, running along beside him. 

He flipped a few more pages.

Here was one of his grandfather wrestling the white bear. And Sansa Stark, pacing the top of the Wall anxiously, her scarlet hair caught in a frosty breeze, blown up against a background of black sky and swirling white snow. Beric Dondarrion setting his sword ablaze, Sandor Clegane covered in dirt and grime, Meera Reed with her bow drawn, Mance Rayder and his wildlings charging through the deep woods on foot. All the many heroes and heroines of that long-ago night were collected here, portrayed in song and vibrant color. 

And what glorious songs they were…

* * *

**_The Haunted Forest_ **

_“Lyanna Mormont slayed a giant—_  
_she stabbed that beast straight through his eye_  
_and as he howled and toppled over_  
_she spat, ‘think twice before you rise!’”_

It didn’t go exactly like the song said. It never does. But close enough. 

The Haunted Forest was full of shadows even in good weather and it was night, with a fickle storm of swirling snow that came and went, making it difficult to see much of anything at all. Up ahead, Beric Dondarrion’s flaming sword cast an arc of light every time he swung it wide and Lyanna found herself seeking out that flame like a touchstone even after her eyes adjusted to the darkness, picking out the shapes of monsters in the night.

But then the archers would send a host of flames above, casting them all in blood-shades, or the moon would find a hole in the bank of violet-black clouds and suddenly light the snowy landscape in a silver sheen that was eerie at best and horrifying at worst.

For the Red Woman was right about one thing. The night was dark and it was _full_ of terror.

Lyanna would always remember the sounds, even when she was an old woman. Those sounds would haunt her dreams and she would sit up some nights on Bear Island, staring out her bedroom window with her dark hair pulled to one side and that scowl she perfected as a girl stealing across her lips.

The ring of steel, the crunch of bone, the strangled cries of the horses, the screams of men being pulled apart alive. The hissing of the undead, the frantic scramble of feet on the ground. The earth rumbling beneath the crash of armies, the dead running, the cavalry charging. 

The hours slogged on, and the dead piled up, and yet there were more. There were _always_ more. 

She heard the undead giant come crashing through the grove beside her, bending grown trees like twigs. The flaming arrows had set a large swath of the woods on fire and now it was all burning, throwing up ash and casting long shadows everywhere. Lyanna’s pulse quickened as she found herself swallowed up by the largest one yet. The giant moved slower than the other wights but his strength made up for any lack of speed. He took on two of her vanguard, tossing one aside and mashing the other into the ground with a gruesome club made of leg bones.

And then it was just the Lady of Bear Island squaring off against a monster ten times her size. 

He knocked her sword from her hand and she swore at him. Then he brushed her aside as if she were a gnat, forcing her to the ground with a flick of his hand. Her face was already smeared with dirt and ash and she spit blood out of her mouth as she stubbornly got back up again, taking a deep breath before charging him with a holler. 

The giant picked her up as if she were a rag doll and, in that moment, Lyanna felt more anger coursing in her veins than anything else. Not fear, not horror. She knew it was pride, but if she was going down, she’d take that damn thing with her. 

So as he lifted her up, she scrambled to grab at whatever she could on the ground, seizing a long shard of dragonglass on impulse. The glass was broken, dropped by one of the men who didn’t make it, and the shard was sharp enough that she felt the slick warmth of fresh blood on her palm as she gripped it tightly, slicing her hand open in the process.

The cut of glass stung like mad. But her hand would heal or she’d be dead before morning, so what did it matter?

She was stubborn to the last. And as that giant brought her close enough to bite her head off, she stabbed him. She stabbed him in his _damn_ eye, straight through. The giant instantly shattered, his bones coming apart at the seams, his grip loosening. Lyanna fell from his grasp, tumbling, landing in the snow below far less gracefully than the songs would later portray.

She groaned as she got to her feet, her left hand feeling worse for the wear, a cracked rib or two for her trouble. But there was no time for recovery. She muttered, “It’s all fucking blasphemy,” before rising to ready herself for the next wave that would come running out of those blighted woods.

* * *

**_At the Top of the Wall_ **

_“A scarlet songbird has no glad melody_  
_not for the long night_  
_she spares_  
_no warble where silence is her only prayer_  
_and entertains no patience for_  
_the mockingbird_  
_who found her there”_

Sansa Stark kept watch at the top of the Wall. She would not come down, even as evening sank into night and night continued on and on, until time might have stopped altogether, stuck at the deepest hour of the darkest night. This is where Sansa would wait out the end, so close to the bruised underbelly of that crisp winter sky that she could nearly touch its icy rafters.

But her gaze wasn’t on the sky. Her eyes never strayed from the northern forest. Not even as the man beside her started speaking his nonsense once again.

“They won’t win this battle,” Littlefinger’s naturally sensuous tones lingered in her ears. How could they not? He stood so close. Petyr Baelish always stood so close to her.

“You don’t know that,” Sansa insisted, not sparing a glance on Littlefinger. 

“We should go now. Ride south with me before it’s too late,” he told her.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” she muttered, remembering well how it worked out last time. If Jon and Stannis had not come to Winterfell when they did and Ramsay had done all he wanted…that would have been on Littlefinger’s head. She couldn’t forgive him for that. 

She wished she could keep her tongue silent as well. He didn’t deserve her words.

“Why aren’t you down there? Why aren’t you fighting with them?” she demanded.

“I’m not a soldier, Sansa. I brought you the Knights of the Vale,” Petyr spoke smoothly. “What more would you ask of me?”

“I wouldn’t ask anything of you,” Sansa sighed. “Except to leave me in peace.”

“I didn’t know about Ramsay,” he was so good with his lies. She wondered if he tricked himself into believing them. “I swear to the mother, Sansa. I didn’t know.”

“Oh, Lord Baelish,” Sansa shook her head, her mouth twisting up into a strange grin, without humor, without warmth, certainly without affection. She said, “I don’t care. I don’t care if you knew or not. I don’t care if you’re here to appease me or try to win me over or…push me off the Wall.” 

“Push you off the Wall?” he blinked, stunned, though she wouldn’t see it, her gaze still fixed on the Haunted Forest. “Sansa, I love you. I would never—”

“You don’t know what love is, my lord…”

“Sansa, I—”

“Just shut up, Lord Baelish. If you truly love me, give me silence. My brothers are out there and likely won’t return this night. If you had any shred of honor, you’d be out there with them. You’ve betrayed my family too many times to count,” she finally looked at him, but only briefly, her blue-grey eyes easily seeing beyond any mask he might wear, any song he might sing. And underneath it all, she saw him, the little man with his petty jealousy and his selfish dreams.

She continued, “I’m sure some mischief brings you to our aid now. But I’m done with it, do you understand? Play your games as you will. Even here, even now, if you can manage to think of your ladder and your chaos while men are dying defending you. Yes, even you, my lord. But I’m done with your games. And I’m done with you.”

She turned back with another soft sigh, running her cold fingers against themselves anxiously, her gaze drifting out over the night. 

Her words cut as deep as her mother’s always had. But chastened by the scarlet wolf, Petyr Baelish took his leave, bowing once before leaving her to her vigil. 

 

* * *

**_In Fields of Ice and Blood_ **

_“They say every Bear Islander fights with the strength of ten men_  
_but that night_  
_Jorah Mormont fought with the strength of a thousand.”_

All the men and women who fought in the Haunted Forest the night the dead marched on the Wall deserved songs. But every last one of them would agree that Jorah Mormont’s skills that night, as a soldier, as a knight, would be something to be remembered for a generation.

He led the Knights of the Vale into the forest and he stood on the front line for the entire night, cutting down every creature that came out of the woods like their existence was a threat to his very soul.

Which was true enough. With every slash of the blade, he found himself thinking of Daenerys and the children, Jeorgianna’s arms around his neck and Aemon’s little wave goodbye, and what would happen if even one of the dead men remained standing.

_I’ll see you when this is over._ He held onto her last promise like a lifeline.

He would kill them all. Every last one of them. No matter how many times those damn White Walkers raised them up again. No matter how many of the men beside him fell in battle only to join the other side. 

Heartsbane tasted more blood and ice and rotting flesh that night than in all the rest of its battles combined. Jorah held the line for hours, keeping them out of the godswood. The others, who might have run back to Castle Black out of fear and the sheer impossibility of their task, looked to Jorah and held steadfast because of him. 

Tens of thousands flooded from the trees to make their assault on the godswood, where Brandon Stark sat waiting, where the nine weirwood trees watched, their eyes bleeding fiercely all night long, streaming down their white bark in rivulets.

Other things came out of the forest, spiders the size of horses, giants the size of houses and at least one dead bear that had a taste for human flesh. They killed them all. And then they killed them again, even when their arms grew numb and their legs felt ready to crumple beneath them.

They say Jorah killed a thousand wights by himself. Lyanna slew a giant. And Jeor would wrestle the undead bear before the night was over, tussling with the rabid thing in the snow drifts, a mess of fur and white hair, before killing it with his own two hands, solidifying his own song in the process.

“ _Fucking_ Mormonts,” Tormund Giantsbane would say at the end of the night, but this time with awe in his voice and respect in his wide, blue eyes.

But Jorah didn’t want anyone’s respect. He didn’t need their praise. He needed to keep his family safe. 

_I’ll see you when this is over. Please, Jorah…_ With Daenerys’s soft, sweet voice echoing in his head, drowning out the more horrific sounds that surrounded him, he found the strength to do just that. 

* * *

**_Mole’s Town_ **

_“R’hllor cursed the dragon’s name_  
_his eyes sparked fire, wreathed in rage_  
_for as his priestess fed his flames_  
_with king’s-blood burned from Shireen’s veins_  
_Daenerys Stormborn stole her back_  
_denying him his taste for ash_  
_and proved the old words true once more_  
_that fire will never kill a dragon”_

 

Gilly was out of breath when she reached Daenerys and the children. 

They had settled Maester Aemon into an upstairs room of the only inn in Mole’s Town and Jeorgianna and Aemon both sat at the foot of his bed, quietly, watching as their mother fed the old man sips of broth that she’d brought up from the kitchen. 

The children couldn’t sleep, and Daenerys couldn’t blame them. They’d heard the horns from Castle Black and the whole village now waited on pins and needles as the night wore on, lonely, dark and cold, the scent of fire and bloodshed on the cusp of every frigid breeze that blew down from the Wall.

Daenerys had been distracting herself with caring for her uncle, with telling the children stories and promising they would see their father again…soon. 

_Please let it be soon,_ she prayed, feeling physically ill every time her mind wandered to Jorah and where he was right now, what he was doing. Her body ached for him, her every thought was for his safety. 

__

Despite her brave words when they’d parted, she found her hands shaking slightly as she lifted the spoon to Maester Aemon’s lips, unable to banish the dire image of Jorah’s body laid out in the snow from her head.

_Please, Jorah…_

As the hours dragged on, her nerves wore thin and she wondered if there was anything that could break the tension that had settled on her caged heart.

She even wished for distraction. She remembers wishing for something to happen. But then Gilly came up the stairs. And this…no, never this.

“She’s going to burn Shireen in the village square!” Gilly managed, her voice colored by a heady mix of fear for her friend and horror at the witch’s actions. “She said there’s no other way. She said the Lord demands a sacrifice…”

Gilly didn’t have to explain further. And Daenerys found herself springing from Maester Aemon’s bedside before she could think twice, spilling drops of that hot broth on her hands as she set it on the nightstand. 

The Red Woman was too brazen. She kindled the dragon in Daenerys like no other.

“Bar the door. Don’t let my children leave this room,” she said in a steely tone, her words for Gilly. The words were a command and the way she said them, Gilly would never think to argue. The wildling girl nodded quickly as Jeorgianna seized her brother’s hand, holding him back from following their mother.

Daenerys ran, as fast as her feet could carry her, down the stairs, out the door of the inn and down the village street to where she found Melisandre, placid and deathly calm, commanding men to tie Shireen Baratheon to a pyre.

Shireen was screaming for her mother and fighting against her captors. Selyse was nearby, restrained by guards, and watching the scene unfold with hollow, tear-streaked eyes. There was a man with a torch, ready to light the pyre aflame. 

They were going to burn the girl alive.

“What are you _doing_?” Daenerys demanded of the red priestess, barely comprehending what was happening.

“Ah, Lady Mormont,” Melisandre’s lips twitched. She sighed, as if frustrated by a child’s mindless question. She replied, “I’m attempting to save you and your children, my lady. And everyone else in this wretched country.”

“By burning a little girl?” Daenerys asked, incredulous.

“Perhaps if you had kept to the fate planned out for you, this wouldn’t be necessary,” the witch mentioned, her usual smirk fading into a terse frown. “Your father’s blood is weak in your veins, Daenerys Targaryen, nearly faded away. Such a shame.”

“Daenerys, please, help me!” Shireen caught sight of the silver-haired woman. She continued to cry out, her voice strained from her many screams. The sound of Shireen’s screams turned Daenerys’s blood cold. And any mother within hearing.

“Let her go, I swear…,” Daenerys began.

“Yes, Lady Melisandre, please! She’s my only child. There must be another way,” Selyse finally spoke, spurred to action by her daughter’s screams. 

“Daenerys!”

But Melisandre was done talking. She was on a mission for her Lord of Light and she would not be dissuaded. She nodded towards the man with the torch and he dropped it on the oiled pyre. The wood caught fire immediately. Shireen screamed again, “Mama! Daenerys!”

“No!” Selyse cried out and struggled wildly against the men who held her arms, holding her back.

The Red Woman tipped her head at Daenerys and said simply, “Dracarys.” 

That word. That _damn_ word and the visions it brought with it. Daenerys refused to succumb to them, false things all. 

Those that were present, in the square, say that Daenerys’s violet eyes flashed red at Melisandre and that if there had been time, they had no doubt that Daenerys would have strangled the sorceress to death right then and there.

But instead, she ran. She ran straight for the pyre and rushed into those greedy flames as if they were nothing at all. With nimble fingers, she untied Shireen’s hands just as the flames licked up to scorch the young girl’s palms. Shireen had enough scars. Daenerys would not allow the fire to add to them. 

“Close your eyes, Shireen,” she said to the girl, embracing her. “Close your eyes and do not move.”

The flames had grown too tall for Shireen to walk through but Daenerys held her close, covering every inch of the girl, using her own body as a shield. The onlookers struggled to see what happened beyond the flames, as the fire raged, all those red flames seeming to consume the women within.

Ser Davos had been sent for as soon as Melisandre dragged Shireen from her bed. He’d been cursing himself for letting the witch slip away from Castle Black without his knowledge. And as soon as he arrived at Mole’s Town, he cursed her too, bitterly.

The others told him what had happened but the fire was too hot to approach. They waited, tense and nearly hopeless, until the fires burned out. Ser Davos had Melisandre’s wrists in a dead lock, holding her fast, waiting to see what evil she had wrought before giving her the justice she deserved. 

“Gods be good…,” the relieved words escaped his lips unconsciously as he witnessed Daenerys Stormborn walk out of the smoldering cinders, miraculously unhurt, unburnt. 

And Shireen with her.

“My child!” Selyse cried immediately, her voice breaking, from the cold air, from hours pleading and trying to bargain with the red witch. She ran forward to kiss Shireen on either cheek, the scarred side too. At the same time, one of the men who rode in with Ser Davos removed his outer cloak and threw it around the shoulders of the woman who had saved their princess, as the fire had burned Daenerys’s clothes to ash. 

“You have stolen from the Lord of Light, Lady Mormont!” the witch seethed at the revelation of their unlikely survival, her expression betraying her true feelings at last. “He will take what is his, in fire and blood…”

“Let him try,” Davos answered, just before he cut Melisandre’s throat wide open, silencing her on the subject forever.

Her red necklace broke on the bite of the knife’s blade and she disintegrated to dust at the Onion Knight’s feet.

 

* * *

**_The Godswood_ **

_“Meera Reed had climbed a tree_  
_its branches bathed in silver glow_  
_and when Jon Snow’s voice split the night_  
_Meera raised and aimed her bow_

_The Three-Eyed Raven’s eyes were clouded_  
_waiting for the killing blow_  
_but when Jon Snow plunged Longclaw deep_  
_Meera let her arrow go”_

 

The dead had gained ground. Far too much ground. Near dawn, the dwindling defenders had been split in three meager factions, as the dead broke like a dam through their ranks, adding more to their numbers with every one of the living who fell in those woods.

The Tyrells, the Mormonts and the remaining brothers of the Night’s Watch were now nearly backed up against the Wall itself, where the dead had slowed their charge, gathering in rank and file, an ominous line of them that stretched the length of the landscape. They waited only for their king’s command. And when that final command came, it would be hundreds against a hundred thousand. 

After the forest caught fire, Stannis and some of the others had been caught too far north, being chased away and now retreating westerly, with a pack of dead men on their heels. But the forest offered nothing but shadows and ghosts, no cover to speak of, no miracles to conjure. So very near the ruins of Craster’s Keep, Stannis told the men under his command to turn and face their enemy. They would be overwhelmed in minutes, but Stannis was weary, as weary as the hours of the night.

And further east, Jon and Mance Rayder were now at the very lip of the godswood, where those nine weirwoods stood silently in the midst of fire, snow and battle. Their bone-white bark had turned a shimmering silver under the light of the eerie moon above. This is where Brandon Stark had spent the battle. This is where the Night King himself finally appeared, veering on his way to the Wall, needing to take care of the Three-Eyed Raven before leading his legions south.

Mance and Jon exchanged a glance as a cluster of White Walkers came forward, separating to reveal their king, the King of Night, the King of Death, striding forward in sprays of blustering snow. 

“This is it, isn’t it?” Jon mumbled.

“Aye, it is,” Mance shook his head ruefully, swallowing hard. “That’s the king of hell walking towards us, boy.”

Mance took a breath, short and white-puffed in the frosty air, and then nodded at Jon and the handful of other boys who were left. They would go out swinging. The dead charged first but this time, the White Walkers raised their swords as well. No one was getting out of the godswood alive.

They fought and they fought well, the wildlings spurred on by Mance and Jon, bringing down the dead and half the White Walkers as well. But soon, the Night King grew tired of the melee and joined it himself, striking Mance Rayder down on the second blow.

Jon watched the wildling king fall. And as Mance hit the hard ground, something inside him broke. 

_The freedom to make my own mistakes was all I ever wanted._ The older man’s voice rang in Jon’s ear as he charged the horned devil instinctively, perhaps stupidly, his sword finding the blue flesh of that monster in the woods by sheer luck.

The Night King turned from his prey too late, having no time to duck away. Jon’s mark was true. But with lightning fast reflexes, the Night King brought his frosted hand up and caught Jon’s sword mid-slash, before it could cleave his head in two. At the catch, the sword rang out a loud call, as if Longclaw had sunk its teeth against diamonds or the hardest granite.

Jon’s heart sank low. Mance had wielded dragonglass to no effect. And apparently, Longclaw would do no better.

_What now? How do we kill you?_ Jon wondered desperately.

Jon pulled his sword back, dodging the blow as the monster swung his own sword, the iced weapon leveled at Jon’s head. Jon rolled away, before quickly getting to his feet again, backing further into the godswood. He looked around him to find the others.

But there were none left. There was no one left.

The Night King’s gaze was now fixated, no longer on Jon. 

“Bran, watch out!” Jon called out in the godswood, unwilling to give up, even after being shown the true worth of his sword. 

His words weren’t for his brother, even though he called his name. His brother was a crippled boy who lived a half-life in the head of the Three-Eyed Raven. What could he do? Nor were they for the Three-Eyed Raven himself, whose eyes were clouded over and had been since the Night King walked into the godwood. With his defenders in tatters, perhaps he was searching for salvation elsewhere.

Jon couldn’t guess the thoughts of a god. He didn’t want to try. 

No, Jon’s words were for Meera Reed, if she still lived. The swamp girl was hidden away somewhere in the godswood. At least, he hoped she was. She could easily be dead too. Had the Walkers already pulled her out of hiding and cut her down with the rest?

He had to trust that she was there. He had to trust that she would know what he planned.

For there weren’t any other plans left.

He gripped Longclaw, he made his move. The Night King’s expression barely altered. He was annoyed perhaps, that this young wolf kept attempting to keep him from his prize, but he had time on his side, and the Three-Eyed Raven wasn’t going anywhere.

Jon Snow struck, the Night King parried and the song of their swords rang out in the godswood.

The Night King was too sure of himself. His confidence would be his downfall. He toyed with Jon, taking too much pleasure in Jon’s doomed dance, dropping his arm carelessly, knowing that Jon’s sword would glance off his body as easily as he would bring down the Wall, once the Three-Eyed Raven lay slain in the godswood. 

And Jon, for his part, was foolish enough to try the same thing twice. Even when he knew it wouldn’t work. Even when he knew that a wise man would be running already. Stubborn as a bastard boy with no prospects, he’d never learned to give up.

A _thunk_ hit the Night King, piercing his heart at the exact moment that Longclaw made contact with his gut. Meera Reed, from her perch in the seventh weirwood tree, had loosed her dragonglass-tipped arrow, aim as true as it would ever be.

And with that desperate meeting of steel and glass together, both pressed against the monster’s skin at the same moment…

It worked. Meera hopped down from her tree limb, joining Jon and Bran below.

All around them, from the godswood to the Wall to the ruins of Craster’s Keep, the army of the dead suddenly shattered into a million shards of ice and bone.

* * *

**_King’s Landing_ **

_“A girl at her needlework_  
_is a dangerous thing_  
_so beware and take care,_  
_all you false kings and queens”_

Dawn came to King’s Landing and Castle Black both, though no one in the North had slept that night and the lazy slumber of King’s Landing wouldn’t be over for a while yet. 

But as the eastern horizon suddenly lit up with gold, Qyburn walked from his mistress’s chambers with blood on his gnarled hands—buckets of blood on his fidgeting hands. He reached into the folds of his black robes to pull out a white cloth and wiped one hand clean.

But then he shrugged and tossed the bloody rag aside. After all, it wasn’t _his_ blood. 

Qyburn walked down from Cersei’s bedchamber in the Red Keep, veering down a narrow staircase before sliding out the servant’s quarters. He nearly ran headlong into one of the gold cloaks as he passed the border of the castle grounds. 

“Valar Morghulis,” he winked, catching the young man off guard. Qyburn tossed the soldier a two-sided coin, before quickly joining the bustle of the city streets, which were already busy and crowded, as the bakers, butchers and fishermen were up and headed to work. 

The gold cloak lost sight of him almost immediately.

They found Qyburn later that morning, in his laboratory, slunk down on the open chest cavity of the corpse he’d been examining the prior evening. He’d been dead for hours. His face was missing.

They found Cersei too, in her chambers, her green eyes gone dark, her golden hair a mess around her beautiful face, all soaked and matted in a puddle of her own blood. The queen had been dead for hours too.

But they never found the girl who did it, for she had left the city before they knew what had happened. And she wouldn’t be returning. The south had never been kind to her family and her list was now complete. 

Arya Stark was headed home.


	18. The North Remembers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter’s entire theme is #HappyJorleesiFeeeeeeeeels…which, finally. Thank goodness the zombies are dead. Seriously. Angst is fun and all but fluff is better ;) 
> 
> Just so you know, I think we’re three chapters away from the end. Which will be so bittersweet for me since this has become my favorite writing project in the history of writing projects. I’m not even joking. But all fics must end, right? #oratleastwrapupnicely #andmakewayfordeletedscenes #andpossiblesequels #andvariousJadeSeaoneshots #ohigotideas 
> 
> And finally, #keyboardsmash, i.e. asdhgjakdalkdjald;alskdjakwuiorandak - that’s fangirl speak for flip back to Chapters 12-14 for some new and (as always) gorgeous illustrations by salzrand (Grandpa Jeor/Jeorgianna meeting and baby bear Aemon and Mormont towers and basically *heart eyes* until the end of time)
> 
> <3

**_Daenerys_ **

In the week that followed that long, terrible night, we mourned the fallen and tended to the wounded. But there was much to be thankful for and on the fifth night after the victory against the White Walkers and their undead legions, they threw a great feast in the halls of Castle Black, the likes of which I don’t believe we’ll ever see again.

For we had all beat death and lived to tell the tale. There was much to celebrate.

I was content with the one tale that mattered most of all. That Jorah had returned to me, alive and in one piece. When he appeared at the inn in Mole’s Town the morning after, I ran to him and jumped into his arms, burying my head deep against the fur and leather at his shoulder. He was bloodied and ready to fall from exhaustion, I’m sure, but he held me close, the strength in his arms no less than when I left him the day before.

Had it only been a day? It felt like an eternity and my heart felt near to bursting on being held by him once again. We didn’t speak, words being paltry, useless things. But my eyes were damp with tears of relief and, when I pulled back to seek out his gaze, I saw the same glimmer of saltwater in my bear’s blue eyes as well.

Oh, but then, he _smiled_. 

Jorah smiled at me in a way I hadn’t seen in some time, with no lingering tension in that expression, no darkness or grim thoughts tainting the curve of his soft mouth. He was covered in battle grime, ash and blood and who knows what else, but I suddenly felt flutters of adoration dance through my stomach, as if I were a new bride falling in love with her brave knight all over again. 

Later, after we’d drawn him a bath with water warmed on the hearth, I sat perched on the edge of the metal tub, fussing over him as he washed, investigating every scrape and bruise that he’d brought back with him from the battlefield. The knuckles on his left hand were scraped raw and would need bandaging but the other scratches and cuts, from icy steel, rusty iron and the vicious nails and teeth of dead men, were relatively minor. Still, I found myself contemplating what might have been, if their aim had been just a little more true to the mark.

“You’re fretting over something that didn’t happen, Daenerys,” Jorah told me, reading my face plainly, as he ran the soapy cloth up and down the length of his forearm. 

“You were reckless,” I scolded him, reaching out and touching my thumb to a long slice that I found running just beneath his collar bone. The cut was shallow but he’d be lucky if it didn’t leave a scar, just the same. I grumbled, “Ser Davos told me what the men are saying and how you held the line while the others were forced back.”

I was proud of him. Of course, I was. The bravest knights in all those old songs had nothing on my flesh-and-blood husband. He was a born guardian and warrior. And I knew who he was fighting for in the forest that night. 

But I was angry too. I was angry that he would put himself on the front line. That he would risk himself that way, even for my sake. Even for Jeorgianna and Aemon’s. The thought of what might have happened and the grief this day might have brought, or the idea that I could have too easily been perched over his grave at that moment instead of his bath…I closed my eyes briefly, feeling ill and light-headed.

“I’ve heard stories from Ser Davos too, _Khaleesi_ ,” he retorted smartly, his tone revealing much. I opened my eyes at his words, ensnared immediately by his knowing glance. So he’d heard about Shireen and the pyre already. I shouldn’t have been surprised. The story was spreading like wildfire. 

“That was different…,” I said, not pleased that he was attempting to change the subject. We were discussing _his_ recklessness, not mine. But I allowed, “I had no choice. That witch was going to burn her—a little girl, not much older than Jeorgianna. What else could I have done?”

“You did exactly what you had to do,” his blue eyes were brimming with pride, with affection, with love. I was nearly swayed into silence by those dear, fathomless eyes. But then he continued, making excuses, “Exactly what _I_ had to do.”

“It’s not the same,” I shook my head, stubbornly.

“Daenerys…”

“It’s not the same thing,” I insisted. “I didn’t take on an entire horde by myself. And when I think of what might have happened and if you had…” 

I might have continued, giving life to those false thoughts by speaking them aloud, but Jorah was in no mood for it. Impulsively, he reached up and pulled me into the tub with him. “Jorah!” I managed before splashing into the water, with a startled shriek escaping my lips. The skirt and bodice of my dress were completely soaked as I gracelessly fell into the bath beside him. 

One dress burned to ash, one drenched in bathwater, all in the span of twelve hours—I was running low on clothes. 

Jorah didn’t care about the dress, his blithe satisfaction written all over his smug, handsome face. He’d successfully silenced me on the subject and he had no regrets. And soon, I found I didn’t have any either, as he was gathering me up closer to him, our bodies pressed together under the steamy water that filled that tub. 

     

For good measure, he decided to extend my silence by tipping my chin up gently and pressing a kiss to my lips.

I slid my body up his bare chest and torso, climbing his large, wiry frame, my wet fingers crawling higher, mindful of his injuries but perhaps a little careless in their travels. He winced a little as I accidently brushed past the bruising on his ribs. 

If he hadn’t pulled me into the tub, I might have felt bad about it.

“It serves you right,” I muttered against his lips. “This is my favorite dress.”

“We’ll get you a new one,” he muttered back, undeterred by anything at present, least of all a ruined dress or the pain of bruised ribs. He ignored both, choosing instead to grin widely on the familiar feel of my soft lips opening beneath his. 

I couldn’t stay angry. I couldn’t even pretend. No, I was too glad to have him back. I was too happy to have his arms around me. 

And as the week went on, that feeling didn’t diminish. What was it about snatching victory away from certain death that always made a person feel so alive? I felt sparked by new life, filled with a vernal energy that was impossible to douse.

Although…perhaps in my case, there were other reasons for those feelings too.

At the feast, I didn’t drink, but I’m not sure anyone noticed, even Jorah. There was much mirth in the hall and the wine and ale flowed freely. Casks had been brought north from the green vineyards of Highgarden, another gift from Lady Olenna should we manage the impossible. 

A raven had been sent to the Queen of Thorns the night before, giving her news of the battle and thanking her for the wine, which they promised to drink to her health. And so they did. Among many, _many_ others. The usually somber halls of Castle Black turned exuberant and joyous, with booming laughter, jaunty chatter and already legendary tales from the battlefield echoing up and down every corridor of the old castle. 

From my seat at the head table, I found myself quietly taking in the festivities around us—the antics of young men who would be legends in their own time, Dolorous Edd attempting an ill-advised handstand on a large cask at the center of the hall (“if I can live through the fuckin’ army of the fuckin’ dead, I can do this”), Lyanna Mormont threatening to _slaughter_ anyone who dared call her Giant-Slayer but then hiding a small smirk as she turned away from their praise, Lord Stannis and Ser Davos trading stories further down the head table, this time without the Red Woman between them, the many drinks toasted by Jon Snow and Tormund Giantsbane over Mance Rayder’s memory, the soft interlude between Sandor Clegane and Sansa Stark happening a few tables over, Meera Reed peeling an orange while catching up with her father, my sleepy children, attempting to stay awake long after they should have been in bed.

The children’s sleeping patterns had been anything but regular since we arrived in Westeros and as much as they wanted to stay up with the adults, I saw Jeorgianna stifle a yawn, and I watched Aemon’s eyes droop down once, twice, three times, before his curly little head fell limp against his sister’s shoulder. 

Jorah noticed too and started to rise, his chair scraping back against the stone floor, but my hand reached out to clutch his wrist briefly.

“I’ll take them upstairs,” I told him, as he was in the middle of a discussion with his father and I didn’t want to interrupt them. It was hard enough to get the Mormont men to talk in the first place. Especially with each other. Jeor gave me a grateful nod as I left them.

I gathered Aemon into my arms, guiding his little hands up around my neck to hold on tight. He stirred only briefly to murmur, “Can we go home now, Mama?” before promptly falling asleep again, his cheek resting against my shoulder.

Then I reached down and brushed my fingers against a few stray locks of Jeorgianna’s silver-blonde hair, tenderly. She looked up at me and I raised my eyebrows just slightly as I suggested, “Time for bed?”

She seemed almost ready to protest, as the feast was exciting and there was much more to see and hear before the night was done, but her eyelids were heavy and the idea of a cozy bed with warm quilts was too tempting. After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded her assent and followed me out of the hall. 

I took my children upstairs and kissed them goodnight, promising Aemon “soon” when he asked the same question once more.

“When will we go home, Mama?” 

“As soon as the sunrise, little bear,” I answered, pulling the covers up to his chin and tucking his stuffed bear beside him. I murmured, more to myself than to the little boy, “If I can convince your father…” 

When I rejoined Jorah, I found my seat occupied by Beric Dondarrion, who was now deep in conversation with my husband and father-in-law. The men noticed my return and Beric started to stand, relinquishing the seat once more, but I waved him back down again, content to stand for a while.

Jorah didn’t want me standing, however. Without breaking his conversation, he reached out for my hand. I gave a small grin as I took it, as I could guess what he was playing at. He pulled me over and onto his lap smoothly, where I settled quite naturally, my one elbow coming to rest on his shoulder, my hand drifting up into his hair. His arm looped at my waist, one hand meeting the other as he locked me in, his hands crossing over themselves casually. 

My fingers played with his hair as I waited for him to finish his words with Beric and Jeor. The ginger curls at the back of his neck received much of my attention, though I spared some energy on the bindings tied around his left hand as well, making sure the wounds beneath were healing properly. 

His father was soon called away by one of the brothers of the Night’s Watch. And then Beric left us to find Thoros, leaving my seat open once again. But I remained where I was, as Jorah seemed content to keep me there and I had no inclination to leave. He turned to me and stole a few kisses for his trouble. It seemed a fair price and I didn’t haggle. My hands left their other occupations to take their place along his jawline, the tip of my first finger wandering up to play at the skin just behind his ear lobe.

We were rarely so public in our affections, but the air in the hall that night was giddy and forgiving of so many things. 

Like Stannis Baratheon’s forgiveness of my family name. Lord Stannis came by our end of the table just before he and Selyse retired for the night. They retired early, having had enough of the revelry. I don’t think it surprised anyone in that hall that their king was a temperance sort. Still, the fact that he made an appearance at all gave me hope that he was learning to be a man of the people and softening his stern and somber reputation in the process. Perhaps he would bring peace and prosperity to Westeros, after all.

With Ser Davos as his Hand and Shireen as his heir, I could think of far less suitable monarchs.

He bowed to me, with grace, saying sincerely, “I will never forget what you’ve done for my family, Lady Mormont. Not ever.”

“It was nothing,” I replied, uncomfortable with the praise. 

“It was _everything_ ,” he stated flatly, leaving no room for doubt. Stannis was not a man who spoke in hyperbole. Princess Shireen, trailing behind her mother and father, gave me the warmest smile and so I accepted her father’s praise without further argument, nodding my head subserviently to him while returning the princess’s warm smile. 

We’d survived a raging hellfire and we would be bound together by that single moment in time, forever, even if we never saw each other or spoke to one another again. 

There were some things beyond words. Indeed…

Like being lost in the taste and sensation of your husband’s kiss…which happened far too easily to me that night, despite being surrounded by hundreds. With my hands hooked along his bearded jaw and our tongues tangling together, I’m honestly not sure how long we spent in that kiss. We were only reminded that we weren’t alone after hearing Tormund Giantsbane’s teasing voice boom out from a few tables over,

“ _Fucking_ Mormonts.” 

And then the red-headed wildling raised his comically large tankard of ale our way, giving his unreserved approval at our activities. Beside him, even the dour Jon Snow cracked a smile as he swigged back the rest of his ale. There was good-natured laughter and cheers from the boys as Jorah and I came up from that kiss grinning like children. I found myself blushing and buried my head against the side of Jorah’s face, forehead pressed against his temple, suddenly shy, as we’d been caught in a _very_ public display of affection. 

     

But Jorah didn’t seem to mind at all, his grip on me as tight as ever, his mood as light as I’d ever seen it, the combination of wine and my presence on his lap breaking down his natural reserve all too well.

And later, when we finally left the feast hall for bed, he was in no less state. Jorah’s wandering hand dropped low on my back as we walked the torch-lit corridors of Castle Black, his fingers curling and teasing at a spot he knew was sensitive to any lingering touch.

My eyes darted sideways at the caress and I cast a smirking glance his way, knowing his aim.

“Are you drunk?” I wondered coyly.

“Aye,” he admitted, impishly. His lips drew very close to my ear, his whiskers tickling my skin as he added, “On your beauty, love.”

I grinned at the compliment but guessed that the wine had something to do with it too. Well, we’d see how drunk he was when we got back to our chambers, I decided, in an amorous mood myself. He was still walking in a straight line, so that was a good sign. And his words fell off his lips sinuously, rather than slurred. I intended to elicit a promise from those lips before we went to bed—that we would go home, tomorrow even, if the weather allowed it.

I wanted to go home for many reasons, but one took precedence over the others. And it was the same reason that I hadn’t been drinking in the hall. 

I was pregnant.

The timing amused me greatly as I might have guessed sooner, _would_ have, had I not been so caught up in the events that brought us to this frozen place or had the nauseous dread of losing my family not been masking everything else for the last however many weeks. I’d felt ill since we landed in White Harbor but I blamed those false visions and the strain of worry and uncertainty. I hadn’t considered…

But I had no doubts now. Jorah’s child grew within me daily and it wouldn’t be long before it was obvious to anyone with eyes. I hadn’t told him yet because I knew if he found out, he wouldn’t want me to travel, especially not an arduous three month voyage across land and sea. He might try to convince me to stay here, in this cold, dark place, until after the baby was born.

But didn’t he understand? I never felt stronger than when I was carrying his child, the bloodlines of bears and dragons mixing so fiercely. It had been the same with Jeorgianna and Aemon.

And, like Aemon, I was ready to go home. I was adamant in this, though I would certainly delay telling Jorah the true reason until we were well on our way…no matter how tempted I was to bring yet another smile to my bear’s handsome face.

I’d made up my mind and would not waver. Our child would be born at home.


	19. Homecoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early chapter update! Have to post this one today because I’ll be away at a wedding this weekend with limited interwebs <3
> 
> Also, you should all be aware of this by now but seriously, salzrand is a gift to our fandom :) And in case you need further proof, please see the new illustrations at Ch. 15 (#SketchesPLURAL #LikePluralAsInFIVE #TheJorleesiEmbrace! #TheBearIslandBear! #JorahandJeorgianna! #ForeheadTouches! #Heartsbane! #FEELINGS) and the _masterpiece_ at Ch. 16 (basically, it’s so beautiful I could die – you’ll see) <3 <3 <3
> 
> Much love to all my readers. Xo

**_Jorah_ **

“Take care on the road,” my father cautioned just before we left. “The Lannisters may have lost their golden grip on this country but it doesn’t mean their men won’t be looking to kill Northerners for a while yet.”

“Northerners?” I questioned the use of the term, knowing that I’d lost the right to call myself a man of the North a long time ago and my children had been born and raised on the coast of a Southern sea.

But Father was nodding, repeating himself while looking wistfully at my fur-clad children. Dressed for a cold journey, Jeorgianna and Aemon looked like two bear cubs in the snow drifts. His tone was clear, and proud, as he directed his words to both of them, “Yes, Northerners.” 

A raven had arrived from King’s Landing, followed by a weary rider, his ragged mount having been pushed through day and night, storm and weather, as the news that was brought to Castle Black was far too important to leave to a single messenger. Cersei Lannister was dead. And it was said that her brother, Jaime, had run off from his siege of the Riverlands, abandoning the Lannister forces on a whim, disappearing in the night for some unknown destination. 

There were rumors that Selwyn Tarth’s daughter had joined him in his mad flight from the Seven Kingdoms. I didn’t know Brienne of Tarth at all but it seemed unlikely that Lord Selwyn’s daughter would cast her lot in with the Kingslayer. And yet… 

_Who am I to judge an unlikely match?_ I thought, as I watched Daenerys bend down and do up the last of the wooden toggles on Aemon’s winter coat, making sure our son was bundled up tight for the ride to White Harbor.

After the feast, we were all intent on going home, wherever home might be found. Lyanna left for Bear Island that morning, after giving her curt farewells. 

“I wish you good fortune, Cousin,” she said when she reached me, with sparse adornment added to the words. But Father must have mentioned his conversation with Aemon to her, for she added, in almost a congenial tone, “And should your children ever wish to see our wild bears, I trust you remember your way to the Island.”

“Yes, my lady,” I replied, giving Lyanna a slight nod and the slightest hint of a smile. Anything more and I was afraid my fierce little cousin would snatch the generous words back.

The Knights of the Vale were gone already and the Tyrells would decamp within the hour. Jon Snow and his siblings would return to Winterfell as soon as the future of the Night’s Watch and the forthcoming treaty with the wildlings was settled. 

And Stannis would soon be marching south to a city that would give him no further resistance. Given the victory in the North, he might even be met with stag banners upon his arrival. I thought briefly of Lord Varys and Tyrion Lannister, holed up somewhere in the East, and wondered if they would still take up their crusade against him, considering that Lady Melisandre was no more. 

Daenerys and I were leaving with the Tyrells, as the weather was clear and Daenerys was anxious to leave as soon as possible. 

Jeorgianna and Aemon were sad to say goodbye to Gilly and Shireen. And even Maester Aemon, who had recovered enough in the past few days to finally recognize that the woman who had been spooning the hot soup into his mouth and sitting at his bedside for the better part of two weeks was his grandniece, and that the energetic children that kept hovering over him, curiously asking questions, were his own flesh and blood.

 _We won’t be the last dragons, after all, Egg…_

But, more than any of the others, they were _crestfallen_ to say goodbye to their grandfather, both their little faces turning forlorn at the prospect of bidding him farewell. The morning we left, they remained close to my father until it was time to go, with Aemon perched in his arms and Jeorgianna staying very near his side, just as she always did with me. 

Given the grim expression on his weathered face, I don’t believe Father was any happier to see them go.

“Will you come visit us, Grandfather?” Jeorgianna asked when he bent down to gather both children into one last hug. His black furs swallowed them both up in his much larger embrace and Jeorgianna’s words were muffled against the Old Bear.

“Soon, lass,” he promised as he pulled back, unwilling to give any other answer. “I hope very soon.”

That was enough for Jeorgianna and Aemon, who knew no barriers of distance when it came to those they loved. With a silent but charged glance thrown back my way, Daenerys shepherded the children down from the wooden stair to the courtyard, leaving me a moment with my father alone.

The silence between us threatened to stretch out…as far as the many miles we would be travelling across the sea. But I swallowed my pride, my lingering sense of failure, and all the rest of it.

“I hope it’s very soon too,” I mentioned honestly, with no expectation, but wanting him to know that he was welcome to make an appearance at the edge of the Jade Sea—whenever, however.

He nodded briefly, without committing himself either way. There was uncertainty about the future of the Night’s Watch and his role as Lord Commander, as there were so few brothers left after the battle and the skirmishes with the wildlings would now be a thing of the past.

“My old bones could use a warmer climate,” he conceded, but gave no promises. 

My father extended his hand and I took it, grasping his forearm tightly. We stopped short of an embrace because we were both stupidly stubborn on that score. Daenerys would give me grief over it later. But I did manage to say, “There are a great many things I regret, Father. But I hope you know that I never meant to disappoint you.”

“I know, Jorah,” he answered, his voice colored by something quite like emotion. He was tempted to say more but the words caught in his throat. He nodded down at Daenerys and the children, his pale blue eyes teeming with affection. “Go on, son. Take your children home.”

### 

The journey was long but uneventful, save a bout of seasickness that Daenerys seemed unable to shake early in the voyage. 

I worried over it, as I’d never known her to be so susceptible to the uneven pitch and roll of the waves. And yet, she bolted out of bed the first morning on the water, dashing up to the deck in her nightclothes to empty her stomach into the sea. 

It was only when we were two weeks on the water that she betrayed her secret. 

The waters were calm and mirror-like, reflecting the deep blue of a sapphire sky, cloudless from horizon to horizon. Jeorgianna and Aemon were sure-footed on deck, playing up near the bow, attempting to call down sea birds with bits of stale bread. I would lecture them on feeding scavengers later but was currently too busy tending their mother.

I gathered her long hair in my hands and held it back as she retched into the gently lapping waves, handing her a flask of water afterwards. She rinsed out her mouth, spitting the last of it out into the sea with a muted groan. 

She looked miserable and slid down the ship's rail when she was done, to catch her breath and rest on the wooden planks below. She brought her knees up under her and closed her eyes briefly. I crouched down beside her, and took her wrist. Her pulse was racing and I found myself suddenly jumping to the worst of conclusions. With all the distraction of mythical monsters and unlikely horrors, something as dismally ordinary as a fever might have snuck into my wife’s body while we weren’t watching. 

And a fever was not something I could slay with a sword.

She must have seen the worry lines appear on my face for she started to laugh quietly, despite the exhaustion she so obviously felt.

“What are you laughing at?” I wondered, no less uneasy, for her laugh might be caused by delirium. I reached forward to feel her brow and the fever that I was terrified lingered there. Her head was cool, despite the flush on her cheeks.

“You,” she replied, catching my hand in her own and bringing it down to rest quietly with her own. She shook her head, “You’re so clever about certain things but then others…”

“Daenerys, if you’re ill…”

“I’m not ill, Jorah,” she licked her dry lips. Her eyebrows knit together as she gave me a tender, almost pitying look, since she knew how her next words would land in my ears, “I’m pregnant.”

And then she smiled, smile growing even wider at the dumbfounded look currently gracing my features, I’m sure.

“But when…?” my mind was reeling. 

A baby? The last few months had been a blur, with death and certain defeat on the cusp of my every waking thought. The idea that new life could manage to take hold in the middle of such chaos seemed as foreign to me as the Dornish shore. 

“You do know how these things work, don’t you?” she teased lightly, biting her bottom lip ever so softly. And then I remembered.

_That night on the ship headed to Westeros. That night you couldn’t sleep. The night we mended our quarrel._

I was going to be a father. Again.

“How long have you known?” I managed. I could guess the answer to that question, I could also guess why she waited until now to tell me. She knew me too well. I was tempted to go to the captain that minute and tell him to turn back. But she’d chosen her moment and she knew she’d get her way.

“Not that long,” she promised, her eyes going soft, her love for me never stronger than while my child grew in her womb. 

A long time ago, as we rode together with the Dothraki in the Great Grass Sea, I remember wondering how it would feel to have Daenerys look at me just as she did now. At the time, I believed it to be an impossible thing and locked it away with all the other impossibilities—the forgiveness of my father, the redemption of my past crimes. 

_Nothing’s impossible, Jorah._

“Are you pleased?” Daenerys asked, with only a hint of uncertainty clouding those violet eyes. Again, she knew me too well.

“Oh, _Khaleesi_ …,” my breathless tone betrayed my answer, my voice husky with too many emotions to count, love for her, love for the child I hadn’t met yet. I pulled her into my embrace, whispering against her hair. “But you should have told me.”

“No,” she answered, shaking her head with a strength of will that surpassed anything that she might see in me. She was very clear, “I want this baby to be born at home.”

I couldn’t fault her for that. And didn’t, bringing her hand up to my lips and pressing a kiss against her palm, before returning it to her keeping. She neglected to let go.

And so we remained, sitting against the rail of that ship, side by side, our hands clasped together absently, until Jeorgianna and Aemon came running down the deck, with animated tales of how Aemon had managed to get one of the sea birds to eat bread crumbs out of his hand.

### 

Daenerys got her wish. The babe was born at home, only a few months after we returned. 

My youngest daughter gave her first cries in the earliest hours of dawn, before the sun had fully crested the horizon. She’d given her mother a long, difficult night and after the child was washed and fed, both mother and daughter slept soundly for hours.

The sun was perched in the highest rafters of the sky when I went up to our bedroom to check on them both. And I found Daenerys sleeping under the light covers, curled on her side, her hair spilling over the pillows and white sheets like a waterfall made of silver-gold strands. 

She’d asked me to wake her at midday but I thought twice. She looked so peaceful while she slept and I found myself transfixed by the sight of her, as always. I leaned over her, hands gently braced on either side of her body, and pressed a shadow of a kiss to her cheek and then another to her bare shoulder, both kisses feather-light against her skin.

But she woke just the same, slowly, her eyes blinking open in the warm afternoon sunlight, as it spilled through lace curtains.

“Good morning,” I whispered, sinking down on the mattress beside her, my right hand running along the curve of her elbow, my left still braced on her other side. She rolled towards me slightly, moving from her side to her back, while her hand crawled along the covers to find mine.

“What time is it?” she wondered, her voice groggy, her other hand drifting up to run over the length of her face.

“Just after midday,” I continued stroking the length of her forearm, languidly moving from her wrist to her elbow and back again in gentle figure eights.

“Jeorgianna and Aemon…?” Her other hand wandered the short distance to where I hovered above her, coming to rest flat against the front of my shirt, her fingers then curling at the line of chest hair just below my collar.

“They’re downstairs having lunch. Do you want anything?”

She nodded, but said, “Maybe later.”

“How do you feel?”

“Tired,” she admitted, stretching her legs out beneath the sheets. She mumbled, in mock displeasure, “Why is it, _Ser_ , that your children always insist on being born at dawn? I get no sleep at all the night before.”

The soft tease brought a smile to my lips, matching hers, tender as ever. Her hand was drifting higher now, to the side of my face, where she curled her fingers along my jaw, her thumb making a sweep along the rise of my cheekbone. She was looking at the bags under my eyes critically. I hadn’t slept last night either, having spent the hours pacing and praying.

A soft cooing sound roused us both out of the quietness of that moment. 

Daenerys shifted herself upwards on the pillows, to sit up against the headboard, while I rose from the side of the bed, taking two steps to bend over the cradle where the baby lay. She was awake, blue eyes wide open to the strange, new world around her, and waving her little arms, having freed them from the swaddling clothes. I picked the little thing out of her cradle delicately, mindful as ever, of the miracle in my arms. 

And I looked at her and she looked at me, blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, and I fell in love with her as quickly as I’d fallen in love with her sister and her brother. 

“Have you named her yet?” I asked as I returned to the bedside, gently handing the infant over to her mother’s arms. Daenerys took the baby gratefully but kept me close, tugging gently at my sleeve, to bring me down once more and join her on the bed, which I did with no argument. The baby settled in her arms, yawning while stretching out her little hands. 

“No,” Daenerys mentioned, while she made happy, smiling faces at the newborn. She said, “It’s your turn, remember?”

I looked down at her with astonishment, unsure. But the hand that didn’t hold the baby came over and squeezed my arm with encouragement. She knew that if I could survive the long night, I could handle naming a child. 

“Daenerys, I…”

“If I don’t like it, I’ll tell you,” she promised, with that same glint of mirth and tease dancing around her tone again.

There was a name in my head already, one that seemed to rush there as soon as I heard the baby’s first cry and the midwife passed her into my arms, the half-light of near dawn falling across her bawling features. It was a name that would honor the bravest, kindest and most generous woman I had ever known. 

A woman who had given me _everything_ , and then some.

“Daenielle,” I replied, nodding to myself on the cadence of those syllables. “I’d like to name her Daenielle. After you.”

The tease in Daenerys’s eyes disappeared at once, to be replaced with genuine surprise, and then…something else. Something that melted my heart. 

She leaned up and kissed my cheek, blinking back a shimmer of tears in her beautiful eyes. 

“I think it’s perfect,” she answered. And Daenielle seemed to approve as well, her eyes darting between us both and her little hand reaching out to take my thumb in her fist. Her little fingers didn’t make it even halfway around.

Soon, we heard the door hinge squeak and looked up to find Jeorgianna and Aemon lingering in the doorway of the bedroom, our other bear cubs too interested in the new arrival to stay away. 

Daenerys beckoned them in by patting vacant spots on the mattress beside her. She passed Daenielle back into my arms as the children scrambled onto the bed to join us. Jeorgianna sat up on her knees and Aemon snuggled down next to his mother, both eager to help welcome their new sister into the world.

     

“She doesn’t talk at all?” Aemon wondered, wanting to confirm his suspicions. 

“Not yet,” Daenerys answered him. “She will, someday.”

“Soon?” 

“Maybe by your next nameday,” I replied. “Would you like that as a present?”

“Yes,” Aemon nodded, nearly satisfied, waiting on his next question almost an entire minute. 

“But how will she tell us when she’s happy or sad or hungry or tired…?” he asked, very skeptical of the way it all worked.

“She’ll manage, Aemon,” Daenerys chuckled at his list, pulling our inquisitive son close to her. “I promise.”

Aemon decided to love his little sister anyway, despite her inability to say anything back to him when he peered at the bundle and greeted her with “hello, pretty baby” before leaning down to plant a kiss on her tiny nose. Jeorgianna loved her too, running her fingers very gently against the downy hair covering the baby’s head. The fuzz had a reddish tint, similar in color to mine and Aemon’s, save a small patch of silver just above her ear on the right side.

Daenielle would always have those few silver strands, a vivid streak against the red, even as she grew tall and willowy, taller than her mother, and her red-blonde hair fell in long tresses and intricate braids down her back. 

But she would be a baby for a while yet, and that afternoon, we all sat in the bedroom for quite some time, marveling over her mere existence. 

Daenielle’s birth marked a new beginning and the villa felt filled with the same brightness and life as before, all those horrors from across the sea banished away as memories to be taken out and dusted off only occasionally. 

Daenerys seemed well pleased to have a baby in her arms again. And in the kitchen a few weeks later, as I watched her holding Daenielle aloft in one arm, while somehow managing to knead floury bread dough into submission with the other, I felt contentment steal over my soul in a way that would never be surpassed. 

At least, that’s what I thought…

There was a sudden knock on the red door, with the sound echoing loudly throughout the villa. Daenerys and I exchanged puzzled glances. We weren’t expecting visitors. I rose from the kitchen table and went to answer it, my fingers trailing at her waist on my way by, in habit.

Jeorgianna must have heard the knock as well, for I met her at the front door. Not knowing who might be waiting behind it, I bade her stand behind me. But curious, she peered around the door frame almost as soon as I opened it.

“Grandfather!” she exclaimed happily, unable to contain her excitement.

For, indeed, it was my father standing on our doorstep. And a little further down the cobblestones, I saw a couple boys from the village carrying a litter, with old Maester Aemon visible within.

I think I was more surprised to see Father out of that crow-black cloak than anything else. But there was no need for furs here, where the sea breeze had turned mild again, having no taste for the snow that dared fall upon its waters only a year past. 

“Hello, lass,” my father answered my daughter warmly, before bringing his gaze back up to mine, noting my surprise with a slight twinkle in his eye, knowing he’d surprised me. He said simply, “Hello, Jorah.” 

He’d sent no word that they were coming. And we both knew each other well enough to know that his words to Jeorgianna at the Wall had been spoken to give the little girl hope and nothing more. 

And now, to see him here, and Maester Aemon too, at the edge of the Jade Sea…I was stunned speechless.

But Daenielle’s birth had reminded me of the sweetness of life and the progression of time, and how it winds and twists ever forward, bringing changes, some terrible, some mundane, but others truly wondrous. That reminder hadn’t had time to fade from my mind yet. 

I might have never seen him again. I didn’t expect to see him again. Truly. But here he was, before me. My heart, already full, was in danger of overflowing. Before I had time to think about it, I embraced Father, fully, with no further reservations, welcoming him here. Welcoming him _home_. 

And what’s more, he hugged me back.

     


	20. Hush the Night and the Morning Gloom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bittersweet mixed in with the fluff. But hey, it gives the story flavor :)
> 
> Credit where credit’s due – the lullaby that Jeor sings to Daenielle in this chapter is “Gone” by Ioanna Gika from _Snow White and the Huntsman_ , which just worked perfectly for this chapter and has a sort of Jeor/Julia vibe built into it because of the haunting mix of voices at the beginning. Listen to it. You'll see. 
> 
> Final chapter next week! Get excited. I’ve got one more big surprise left. Xo

**_Jeor_ **

When the decision was made to disband the Night’s Watch, I wasn’t sure how to feel. 

I’d voted with the others to end it, as the purpose of the order had reached fruition and we’d done what we’d sworn to do. And yet, as soon as the thing was done, the vote counted, the very words leaving my mouth, “and thus ends our watch,” I felt about as steady as a piece of driftwood cast out into the frothy sea.

Or like a crow whose wings had just been clipped. When I removed the heavy, black cloak that had so long marked me the Lord Commander of the Watch, the feeling only intensified.

I had expected to live out my days at the Wall. There was comfort for me in the predictable routine of Castle Black and that routine was now at its end. Free from all oaths and duties to the realm, what would I do now, where would I go? 

Back to Bear Island? No, I couldn’t go back there. The scent of the pines, the roar of the waterfalls—I could bring it all to mind at any moment of any day but stepping foot on the Island once more? Walking those old paths, my feet falling against those familiar stones of the Keep? I’ve never considered myself a coward. But no, I couldn’t do that. 

And for the same reason I left in the first place. 

_Are you afraid of ghosts, Jeor?_ Julia’s voice was in my head, asking the obvious question.

 _Just yours_ , I admitted to myself, or perhaps to her, knowing that if I returned to the Island, I would find myself haunted, just as I had in the years after her death. She was in every tree root, every flower bed, every mountain stream and every crash of water against the jagged coast.

I knew from experience that no good came from living with a ghost. It turned a man’s thoughts inward and sullen, keeping the past far too near, to the point that he ignores the present.

I wasn’t a good father. Not after Julia died. Jorah would never say it, but it’s true. He knows it and so do I. Something in me died with her and I struggled to fill the vacant hole it left behind.

Despite my son being right there in front of me, with his mother’s eyes looking out at me, silently begging for…oh, a gentle word would have been a start.

I don’t know why I couldn’t manage it. I loved my son. I loved him still. But, for a long time, I think I loved my grief more. And if I went back to Bear Island, my regrets would haunt me as much as Julia.

So when Aemon Targaryen told me he was dying, for good this time, and that it was his last and final wish to see those young dragons once more before the end, I found my excuse, though gods know I shouldn’t have needed it.

I went East—nearly as far as East goes. And I met my son at the red door of his white house and when he embraced me, warmly, instinctively, bridging the remaining distance between us so easily, I knew this would be my home until the end of my days.

Maester Aemon didn’t last long after we arrived. A few months, little more. But his last days were quiet and tranquil, and a fitting end to the long and storied life of a man who might once have been king. 

He spent those days in the company of those who loved him, preferring to sit on the sun-soaked terrace of Jorah and Daenerys’s seaside villa, light blanket thrown over his knees, listening to the songbirds and the sounds of Jeorgianna and Aemon’s voices as they played in their mother’s gardens. He held little Daenielle in his arms when she was only three weeks old and he declared her to be the most beautiful baby that had ever lived on either side of the sea, despite looking upon her delicate features through eyes that had gone blind a long time ago. 

I agreed with him, of course, but my objectivity was as compromised as his own. 

My son’s children were wonderful, all three of them filled with life and curiosity and sweetness and all those lovely things that the world would attempt to steal away from them in time. But perhaps Jorah would manage what I could not. Perhaps his love, and Daenerys’s, would keep these children untainted and safe from cynicism and cold weather and the worst failures of human nature.

I’d seen more impossible things in my time. And if love might conquer all troubles and grief…well, Jorah and Daenerys’s house was filled with it. 

And when death visited that house in the months after we arrived, it was gentle enough. 

“Grow up strong and true, Aemon Mormont,” Maester Aemon whispered to my grandson the day before he died. A smile curved across his ancient lips, his wrinkled face creasing as he said goodnight to his little namesake. He reminded the boy, “And don’t forget about Egg.”

“I won’t,” the younger Aemon promised, and hugged the old man tightly before hopping off his bed and running off, not yet aware of the stark difference between a goodnight and a goodbye. 

The next morning, Maester Aemon slipped into a calm, deep sleep that we knew he wouldn’t wake from. This time both Daenerys and I kept him company, sitting with him through the remains of the day, sitting on opposite sides of the bed, listening to his breathing grow fainter and fainter as the hours wore on. 

Jorah had taken Jeorgianna and Aemon down to the market in the village. Daenielle was asleep in Daenerys’s arms, after a solid hour of Daenerys pacing in the room with the fussy baby, bouncing her slightly, humming to her quietly.

Daenerys had surprised me when we first met at Castle Black. She continued to surprise me. What I knew of the Targaryens was all hot-blooded tempers and rash decisions—the recklessness of Prince Rhaegar in stealing the Stark girl away would never wash out. And Daenerys had a temper, there was no doubt about that. But she used it well, standing up for herself and her children, and my son, who she loved deeply, with no conditions or demands. 

She resembled Lynesse Hightower a little, but the differing temperaments of those two women was like night and day. Lynesse had been shallow, jealous and spoiled. Daenerys was gentle, generous and kind.

And after only a few weeks in her company, I could find no similarity at all and wondered at how I might have mistaken the resemblance in the first place. 

I had no trueborn daughter, but even on such short acquaintance, I felt kin to Daenerys, in a way that would have been laughable to Lynesse Hightower. 

“I already have a father,” Lynesse once snapped at me on Bear Island. I’d dared to give her sympathy, letting her know that the North may not have the comforts she was used to in Oldtown but that its charms might grow on her in time. I told her that if she could make it through the first year, I’d wager she’d find things to love about the Island, just as she had come to love my son. 

“What do you know about any of it, old man?” she spat at me and left my presence with a petulant scowl on her pretty face, locking herself in her bedroom until Jorah went up and tried to coax her out again with the promise of expensive gifts and flattering words. 

I left for Castle Black soon after and I can’t say that Lynesse and I ever spoke again. I’ve heard she’s dead now, strangled by the wife of her lover in Lys during a spat that broke out in the merchant-prince’s harem. I’m afraid I felt no grief at the news. For as she once so bluntly reminded me, I wasn’t her father.

But I would be Daenerys’s father, if she wished. For as long as she wished. And I would take up the role with pleasure, for she was a gem of a woman, in her own right, and the mother of my grandchildren.

“Were you with Jorah’s mother when she died?” Daenerys asked me, quite unexpectedly. I looked up, across the dying man between us. Her voice remained low, hoping not to wake Daenielle.

“Jorah’s never told you how his mother died?” I wondered.

“Jorah doesn’t talk about her,” Daenerys replied.

I nodded, with guilt. That was my fault too. It was an old habit he learned from me, born of a false belief that not talking about her might soothe the pain that seemed to sear through my breast at the very mention of her name. 

_You were always such a foolish old bear_ , Julia would’ve smirked at my vain efforts.

Daenerys’s thumb was softly running over the baby’s little fingers, her tiny knuckles and specks of fingernail, as she waited on me to speak. But there was no demand in her eyes, no expectation. She would not press me further. And yet, I knew those violet eyes could draw out secrets from my soul with little trouble. 

I found myself _wanting_ to talk about Julia, for the first time in…I have no idea how long. But it felt like a lifetime. 

“Jorah was little more than Jeorgianna’s age,” I began, slowly but with a steady recollection. The memory of that day would never dull, still sharp and bright as newly-minted copper. Or the sun picking out the redder strands of Julia’s russet-colored hair. The way she laughed as she waded over to where I stood fishing in the long reeds.

_You’ll scare away the game._

_The game will wait._

I continued, “It was a summer day but late in the season, and we’d gone up into the mountains to enjoy the last of the good weather. I was fishing when Julia told me she had a fierce headache and she’d meet us at home. She was going to lie down for a while and maybe chase the headache away before dinner…”

     

I paused. Daenerys said nothing, just waited on me to continue, her eyes going soft as my tone betrayed the story’s tragic end.

“The maester said she felt nothing at all. That the gods took her in an instant. One of the maids met us outside the palisade, wringing her hands. Her face was white as a sheet and she told me she couldn’t wake her mistress. She was weeping. I dropped everything in my hands and I rushed…”

The day had been too sweet, all blue skies and gentle breezes, the kind of late summer day that you hold onto all through the long winter. After his mother went down to the Keep, I’d beckoned Jorah over and had him cast line into the water beside me. He caught a trout in the stream that was nearly half his size. It was the largest thing he’d ever caught and he was excited to show his mother. 

“But she was gone long before I reached her bedside,” I finished, my voice as numb as the numbness that spread over my entire being that long ago day. 

I remember kneeling beside Julia’s cold body, my hands locked together in some sort of doomed lament to the same damn gods who stole her away. There were footsteps on the stones behind me and I looked back, seeing Jorah standing in the doorway, his eyes tearful, his young face in shock and misery.

I should’ve reached for him immediately but I didn’t know what to say. My mind didn’t accept what my eyes saw. She was there. She was right there in front of me. I had seen her less than an hour before, alive, vibrant, smiling. She’d kissed me and said she’d meet us at the Keep. And then…

“What was she like?” Daenerys asked, hesitantly, but gently drawing me away from my more painful memories too, with the skill of a woman who had learned to read the darker thoughts of bears long ago.

“She was…a wildflower in a field of weeds,” I sighed, knowing I was waxing poetry. But how else could I describe her? 

_Julia, my wildflower._ There were times when I found myself doubting her existence at all. And if it weren’t for Jorah, and those eyes that insisted on the reality of his mother’s existence, I might have thought I dreamed her up.

For Julia’s origins were anything but conventional. She was no highborn girl. She had no family name. She was a foundling child, washed up on the shores of Bear Island when she was just an infant, the lone survivor of a shipwreck somewhere off our shores. She was raised by fishwives in the village of Ynes Lyme to be hardworking and practical. But she used to sing old songs that she didn’t learn from any of the village women and she always preferred spending her days in the woods, rather than in stone houses. 

“You might as well have married a Child of the Forest, Lord Mormont,” Lord Rickard Stark once declared at a feast in Winterfell, which might have been true enough. Julia had a wildness about her that seemed out of place at court, but I loved her from the moment I saw her, humming one of her old songs over a steaming vat of laundry in my father’s house. 

“I see where Jorah gets his penchant for romanticism,” Daenerys mentioned, with a small grin of approval, after I told her these things. 

After a hushed moment of silence, she spoke very plainly, “He loves you dearly, you know? And he’s very glad you’re here.”

I nodded to my daughter-in-law, my affection for her deepening with every minute spent in her company. I briefly wondered how two stubborn, unworthy bears had been blessed with such a woman in our lives, to say the words that we could not. 

“I love him too,” I admitted to her, very softly. 

Jorah and the children returned just as the afternoon was slipping into evening. The windows in the upper bedroom faced the western horizon and a warm, orange glow filled the space as night approached. 

The baby woke at the sound of chattering voices down below, with both Aemon and Jeorgianna enthusiastically clamoring on about whatever purchases they’d been allowed to make in the market that day. But Daenielle woke up too abruptly and began crying her little head off, whether from bad dreams or disturbed sleep, turning away from Daenerys’s breast stubbornly, unwilling to be swayed by her mother’s soothing tones. 

“Give her here, lass,” I offered, knowing Daenerys was fully capable of calming her own child but guessing she might want some respite nonetheless, especially since she’d just gone through the same not even an hour before. She seemed grateful as she handed Daenielle over.

“Oh, what’s the matter, Daenielle? Did we wake you from sweet dreams?” I spoke gently to the baby as she cried, with fat tears rolling down her soft cheeks, her little face going scarlet under whatever dire sadness buzzed through her little head. 

I remembered how I used to soothe Jorah into submission when he was a baby and decided to try the same with his child, my baritone voice dropping into the first notes of an old lullaby that Julia had taught me many, many years ago.

_“Dark the stars_  
_and dark the moon_

_hush the night and the morning gloom_

_tell the horses and beat on your drum_

_gone their master,_  
_gone their son_

_dark the oceans_  
_dark the sky_

_hush the whales and the ocean tide_

_tell the salt marsh and beat on your drum_

_gone their master,_  
_gone their son_

_dark to light_  
_and light to dark_

_three black carriages, three white carts_

_what brings us together is what pulls us apart_

_gone our brother,_  
_gone our heart”_

The baby’s cries grew quieter by the second verse and her tears had stopped by the third. She stared up at me with those blue eyes, captivated, liking the sound of her grandmother’s haunting tune. I smiled at the baby’s interest—I always liked that song too.

While I sang to Daenielle, Daenerys had taken Maester Aemon’s wrist gently. After a few seconds, she set his hand back down on the quilts before taking a step towards the headboard and placing two fingers to the vein at the old man’s throat. 

With that same hand, she then reached up and laid her hand on his forehead, stroking back the wispy, white locks of her uncle’s hair, before bending down to plant a soft kiss against his brow. As she straightened up again, she met my gaze and shook her head solemnly.

“He’s gone,” she said.


	21. Sunrise on the Jade Sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last early update because you all deserve it :)
> 
> Make sure to flip back to Chs. 17-19 for new illustrations by salzrand! <3 <3 <3 There will be one more update after this one, just to collect all of salzrand’s fantastic artwork on this fic in one place for our eternal viewing pleasure. But I’ll wait until she’s finished the last illustration :) :) :) 
> 
> Okay, time for the last chapter. Ready? No, me neither. But hey, you didn’t think I would forget about those dragon eggs, did you? ;)

**_Daenerys_ **

We burned Maester Aemon’s body on the beach, on a secluded strip of salt and sand about a league away from the village, where the seacoast is pockmarked with hollowed caves and bordered with high, white cliffs.

No one came out here, as it was a hidden cove, with too many black rocks poking out of the shallow waters to give the fishing ships easy entrance. And the locals tended to avoid this side of the cliffs, having grown up with a story about a drowned woman and a sea captain and ghosts. There were always ghosts in those old stories.

But Jorah and I had grown up far from here and our children had no fear of ghosts. They weren’t afraid of anything. Not while their father and I, and now their grandfather too, were nearby.

Jorah and his father built the pyre, with Jeorgianna and Aemon hovering near them, watching the men work. At the children’s feet sat those three, petrified dragon eggs from the garden, sitting in a lopsided pile in the sand. We dragged those eggs down to the beach at Aemon’s insistence, as he told me that our uncle _must_ have them for his journey to the next life.

“He told me not to forget them, Mama. And I promised,” Aemon beseeched me, his eyes going as wide and blue as his father’s, containing all the same Mormont charm that I was always so powerless against. Still, I tried to reason with the little boy.

“Sweetheart, he was talking about his brother, Aegon,” I explained gently, as he seemed so set on the idea. He had muddled it all in his little head from the very beginning—Targaryens, dragons and Aegon the Unlikely, Aegon the Long Dead. And now, my son had somehow convinced himself that Maester Aemon needed those old dragon eggs. That he wouldn’t be at rest without them.

Aemon pleaded with me, looking so thoroughly despondent that I had to suppress the grin hinting at my lips, lest he think I was disregarding what he believed to be a solemn vow made to the man he was named after.

_Oh Aemon, my son, if you use those blue eyes half as well when you’re grown…_

Honestly, until Aemon brought it up, I’d forgotten about the eggs. I hadn’t thought on them in years.

When we first came to this place, Jorah bought the villa with gold from his own purse. I’d brought the eggs with the intention of selling them, should we run out of money on the road. They were worth a fortune. One egg could have bought passage to Westeros and an army with it, a palace in Volantis or any number of exotic wonders from the shadowlands beyond Asshai. 

But after Rhaego died, I didn’t want to go to Westeros, I didn’t need a palace in Volantis and I had no interest in seeking out the shadow tricks of those red priests in Asshai. I’d run from the clutches of one witch. I didn’t intend to seek out another so soon. 

Jorah’s wages at the docks were enough to live on. And later, I found I couldn’t part with the eggs anyway, even if I had been tempted to seek out a different sort of life. My family name was no more, Old Valyria was in ruins, the dragons were gone forever. But those eggs…

My hands would trace those ridges curiously, as they had that day in the desert when Irri found me holding them to the heat on the brazier, with the raw and strange instinct of…well, I didn’t know what compelled me to put them on the coals. I still didn’t know. 

I used to dream about dragons when I was a little girl, with those massive, winged creatures soaring far above my head. I would reach my hands up towards them and try to call them down, just as Jeorgianna and Aemon tried to call down the seabirds on the ship as we crossed the Narrow Sea. But those dragons stayed in the highest reaches of the sky, circling the blue slowly, piercing the feathery clouds seamlessly. They paid no attention to a young girl on the ground. 

I would tell Viserys about my dreams and he’d dismiss them with a sneer, “Don’t speak nonsense. All the dragons are dead, Dany.” 

But, in the end, I couldn’t part with the eggs, even though they were just old stone. I put the dragon eggs in my garden for safe-keeping. Then Jeorgianna was born, Aemon soon to follow, and I forgot about them. 

For what could those eggs _possibly_ buy that would compare to my children? The dragon eggs remained as ornaments in the garden, crowned with daisies and overgrown with green ivy, a curiosity for Jeorgianna and Aemon and no more.

“The fire won’t damage them,” Jorah shrugged when I told him of Aemon’s plan. He allowed, “They’re petrified stone. And they’ve survived worse over the last three hundred years, I’m sure.”

And so I relented and told Jeorgianna and Aemon to fetch the eggs before we left the house that day. They brought them down to the beach with us and, after the pyre was built, Jeor and Jorah helped them place the eggs around Maester Aemon’s linen-wrapped body.

Jorah hooked his strong hands under Aemon’s arms and lifted our little boy up high, to the top of the pyre, where Aemon ceremoniously placed the last egg at Maester Aemon’s head.

The day was pleasant and warm and we spent the waning hours of the afternoon doing quiet, simple things. Jeor took Aemon down to the shallows of the inlet to teach his grandson how to tie a simple hook and cast line out into the water. Jeorgianna and I built sand castles, decorated with bits of pastel seashells and white sand dollars, that were later swallowed up by high tide. Jorah took Daenielle down near the water, walking barefoot in the surf while speaking to the baby in his arms softly, likely winning her heart as easily as he had done the others.

     

At nightfall, we lit my great uncle’s pyre.

The fire consumed the old dragon, burning hot and orange against the indigo-violet of the night sky, with flickers of light reflected out on the lapping waves of the black sea. The crackle of driftwood and flames threw sparks into the breeze that spun upwards, licking the underside of twilight. 

We lingered around that fire for a long time. And as night grew darker, we decided to sleep on the beach, as the air was warm in the cove and the sand was soft back near the dunes. It seemed right to stay until the flames burned themselves out.

Jorah had brought a small veil of netting to place over the wicker basket that I’d brought for Daenielle to nap in. It would keep away gnats and any other insects that would be tempted to bother the baby while she slept. I’d brought a few quilts and blankets down for the day and they’d suffice to sleep on. 

Jeorgianna and Aemon played in the surf until silver stars started to peek out from the eastern horizon, their laughter and chatter echoing down the length of the beach, bouncing off the high cliffs with a faraway sound. They tired themselves out and both fell asleep without any begging on my part.

Jorah and I shared a quilt within arm’s reach of Daenielle, both of us taking a side to unfurl it out on the sand. Jorah grabbed one of the smaller blankets, folding it once more to use as a makeshift pillow to scrunch up beneath his neck. I often slept with my head resting against his chest anyway so I needed nothing more but him. And he knew it, beckoning me down with an easy tug of my hand. 

As I settled down in Jorah’s arms, I noticed that Jeor was still awake, standing further down the beach, drinking wine from a mug, eyes still locked on the fire that burned his old friend’s body to ash, lost in his own thoughts. 

I fell asleep soon after, listening to the steady crash of the waves on the beach below and Jorah’s steadfast heartbeat beneath my ear. That familiar _thrum, thrum, thrum_ had a soothing and musical tone that never failed to lull me to sleep. 

     

That night, I dreamed of dragons.

I dreamed of dragons for the first time since I was a child. But these dragons were not flying high above me, far from reach. No, they landed before me—three large dragons, massive and mythical—flying down from the cliff side caves to land in the surf of that beach, throwing up saltwater as they made landfall, stretching their glorious wings and shaking the water off their black, gold and green scales. 

My children were with those dragons too. But they weren’t children any longer—Jeorgianna, fearless as always, was perched up on the back of the black dragon. Aemon, ginger-bearded and as tall as his father, was leaning back against the front shoulder scales of the gold one, arms crossed over his chest as he spoke with Jeorgianna about tailwinds and a threat of storms on the Summer Sea. And Daenielle, with that striking streak of silver so visible in the braids of her long, red-blonde hair, was splashing a little water at the green one’s snout playfully.

The green dragon shied away from the water but seemed to like it too, slapping its tail against the waves and sending a spray of water over my daughter’s head. She gave a little squeal as the water drenched her head to toe, but she recovered quickly, pitching some more back at the dragon. The dragon sneezed as the water went up its nose, sending errant sparks of flame into the rolling surf.

And, in the dream, Daenielle laughed.

### 

I don’t think I’ll ever tire of watching the sun rise on the Jade Sea. Not ever. On a clear morning, sunlight spills onto the water in pale shades of blue-grey, then lavender and rose petals, before the gold orb rises up from the waters. 

The morning after we burned Maester Aemon’s body, the first rays of sunrise fell on my children, as they were already up and running on the beach again, off to new adventures, pulling their grandfather along with them. The sunlight fell on Jorah too, as he doused the small campfire beside us with a pot of seawater, the light of the sun highlighting the red in his hair and beard. 

“I think it’s time to go,” Jorah said to me, with an eye on those clouds above us. They had grown thick and cinder-colored overnight. The sun was peeking out from beneath the cloud bank but would soon be swallowed up by it. The wind was picking up and promised a rainstorm before the end of the morning. 

“I think so too,” I agreed, as I gathered Daenielle up from where she lay on the quilt. She gurgled happily, newly changed and glad to be held up in my arms again, where her vision was unimpeded and her gaze could seek out the many sounds and sights around her. But her little fingers grabbed a fistful of my hair immediately, holding on a little too tight. “Jorah, would you help…?”

He grinned at my predicament, a grown woman held captive by a baby. But he came to my aid at once, helping me disentangle Daenielle’s iron grip from those strands of my hair.

“She’s stubborn,” Jorah mentioned, as he gently pried her fingers away. But there was pride in his voice and he took a moment to bend down and place a sweet kiss to the top of the baby’s head.

“I wonder where she gets that from?” I murmured slyly, eliciting another grin from my bear. I took a kiss for myself before he moved away again, both of us gathering up the quilts on the sand, shaking them out before folding them and piling them in the wicker basket.

“Jeorgianna?” I called down the beach, to where the children were skipping rocks on the water. Aemon was inspecting sea stones for the correct smoothness and held them up individually for Jeor’s inspection. I bade her, “You and your brother should go find those eggs. We’re leaving soon.”

“Yes, Mama!” she called back, before throwing her last stone out onto the water. It skipped the waves three times and Jeor gave her a hearty, “There you go, Jeorgianna,” as Aemon clapped his hands together at her successful efforts. 

The children then ran down the beach to dig through the remaining cinders for the old eggs, while Jeor plodded back up to where Jorah and I were packing the rest of what we’d brought down to the beach the day before. My husband’s father looked happy and younger here, the grimness of Castle Black fading away from his weathered features with every day spent in the East.

“It’s going to rain,” Jeor mentioned to his son. “You can smell it on the sea.”

“Aye,” Jorah nodded in agreement. “I’m hoping it holds off until we get back to the house.”

The men slipped into silence after that, but I didn’t worry over their long silences any longer. The Mormonts were naturally reticent—that would never change. But neither would their love for each other, made all the stronger by the love they shared for those two little ones running up the beach and the baby that I held in my arms. 

“Mama!” Aemon’s voice carried on the sea breeze. He hollered out “Mama” at least a hundred times a day so my mind didn’t register any cause for alarm or anything out of the ordinary at first. But when Jeorgianna followed her brother’s call with, “Papa!”…I looked up immediately, eyes alert for danger.

Both the children were hurrying back up the beach, sewing the distance between us with hurried little footsteps. They had something with them. Some new treasure, no doubt. And as they came closer, I saw wriggling things in their arms—two in Jeorgianna’s grasp and one in Aemon’s. 

Leathery skin with reptilian eyes. 

Lizards, three young salamanders from the beach, I imagined, but they could have been poisonous and how many times had I told Jeorgianna not to let her brother pick up any random thing that…

My breath suddenly caught in my throat, my mouth going slack on the words it failed to form. The black lizard in Jeorgianna’s arms stirred while the green one crawled up to her shoulder and stretched out its wings.

_Wings. They have wings…_

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the abrupt change in Jorah’s expression. He’d seen it too. My gaze flickered to meet his, in habit. 

_They have wings, Khaleesi._ He didn’t say the words but they were written so clearly on his features that I could hear his voice in my head. The astonishment in his eyes matched mine exactly. And matched Jeor’s as well, who was looking at the children’s new playthings with utter disbelief. 

     

“Look, Grandfather,” Aemon was holding the gold creature up towards Jeor and it screeched in a very small voice, like a newborn.

_Like a newborn dragon._

“Mama, look,” Jeorgianna echoed her brother, looking between Jorah and I, with a tone of wonder in her young voice. “Papa…what are they?”

She knew what the two creatures in her arms looked like. She’d seen enough pictures in old books. But my daughter was practical and she knew the same simple truth that was currently running through all our heads. 

The dragons were dead. For hundreds of years. The dragons were _all_ dead.

“I don’t…,” Jorah was at a loss for words, struck speechless at the strange and wondrous sight of baby dragons held in his children’s arms.

His blue eyes met mine again, seeking, questioning, but I could manage no more than him. None of us could.

Except Daenielle, who felt no more astonishment at the sight before us than she did at anything else. Everything was strange to her. Everything was new. She was only four months into her life, and she was still willing to believe anything her eyes could see or her ears could hear. And much like Aemon before her, she loved whatever treasures her brother and sister brought back for her, unconditionally.

The baby made a little sound in my arms, so I shifted her in my grasp, bringing her closer to Jeorgianna, where the green-winged creature sat perched on my daughter’s shoulder, blinking its slit eyes. Daenielle’s gaze was fixated by it and she stretched out her hand towards her sister. The green dragon was nearly as curious about the baby and, stretching out its long, scaly neck, it sniffed at Daenielle’s fingers.

Daenielle’s unsteady hand came to rest on the dragon’s tiny, leathery snout. It sneezed, just like in my dream. 

And the baby laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, now you see why Maester Aemon’s plot armor was so thick. I would have given him a peaceful death no matter what, but it was important that it happened at the Jade Sea. Three children + three dragon eggs. I mean, the math just works out ;)
> 
> And I think my working title for the sequel will be “The Dragonriders of the Jade Sea”…maybe Queen Shireen has some threat to Westeros that needs to be dealt with and she calls on some old friends? Hmmm? Anybody interested in seeing some Mormont-Targaryen children grow up to be badass dragon riders?? 
> 
> So the rest of this end note will be long because I’m obnoxious when it comes to goodbyes. 
> 
> But tl;dr – I love you all, my readers are amazing and this ship is amazing and thank you all from the bottom of my heart. YOU ARE ALL SIMPLY THE BEST <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 x 1000 
> 
> The Longer Version:
> 
> Not to be dramatic, but this has been one of the best writing experiences of my life (lots and lots of credit for that goes to salzrand, but I’ll get to you later, ma’am). 
> 
> I’ve watched Game of Thrones from the beginning. I’d read the books but was kinda meh on them because although I like some of GRRM’s writing style and characters, I’m crazy picky about my fave books. I was just like yeah, so wake me up when the incest/rape is over. Buuuuuut…
> 
> Then they cast Sean Bean as Ned. And my sister and I turned to each other and said, “ummm, sold” - we’re LOTR girls from way back and if you cast Boromir in something, we watch it, end of story :) 
> 
> Anyway, I came to the show for Sean Bean but stayed for the zombies, and the mythology, and…oh my god, Jorah/Dany. Team Jorah/Dany until the end of my days. From the moment he helped her down from that horse, I was just like *heart eyes* 
> 
> But I loved the whole show. I loved how I hated Cersei. I loved that I felt bad for her when her children were gone. I loved how Jamie was the WORST but Brienne brought out the BEST in him and how his redemptive arc was slow and unlikely but had a natural feel too. I loved the Starks. I did. I was fully Team Stark and hoped that Arya would make it home someday and Jon would find his family again and Sansa would survive her young foolishness and grow up to be strong and awesome. I adored the Bran storyline because of the mythology and oh my god, the White Walkers—what did they want? How would the living prevail? 
> 
> And I loved Dany the most. I loved that she broke free of her brother, I loved that she wanted to stand up for the weak and oppressed—strong but soft, brave but gentle…and always breaking the wheel.
> 
> Someone who could rule and _should_ rule. 
> 
> And then those stupid showrunners set the whole thing on fire. Honestly, the only early plotline that remained intact was Jorah’s love for Dany (and hers for him – you can’t convince me otherwise, don’t even try) so the fact that Jorleesi _survived_ the massacre of canon just makes me love this ship so much more. Canon has no power over a connection like this.
> 
> So yeah, S8 was a raging trashfire and this fic was total therapy and _absolutely_ wish fulfillment. Also, maybe a little revenge. You wipe out House Mormont in one episode, I’ll keep Jeor alive. Fair’s fair, you stupid boys.
> 
> But then it morphed into something else and, like I said up thread, salzrand _darling_ , you had a ton to do with that. Because I live for collaborations and this has just been the best collaboration EVER. A meeting of the fangirl minds, for reals. I’m so honored you felt inspired by those early chapters because your inspiration just fed my inspiration and I’m so, so happy with how this story turned out. Mwah! Thank you! Merci Beaucoup! These thank yous will be ongoing :)
> 
> To the rest of my readers, I can’t thank you enough for joining me on this journey! There are too many to thank individually this time but you’re all fantastic, without exception. The comments, the kudos, the Tumblr and Twitter messages, oh it’s all been such a fluffy, wonderful time. I love sharing these stories with you all and I don’t plan to stop writing Jorleesi anytime soon, so I hope to continue trading words, *heart eyes* over our OTP and lots of virtual hugs with you all in the future <3
> 
> *GRANDPA JEOR BEAR HUGS TO ALL*


	22. The Jade Sea Art Gallery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to the Jade Sea Art Gallery. All artwork by the talented and amazing salzrand <3 <3 <3 
> 
> If you enjoy her work, be sure to check out her pages on [Tumblr](https://salzrand.tumblr.com/) and/or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/salzrand) where you will find other lovely creations of the softest and prettiest variety *heart eyes*
> 
> P.S. I updated Chapter 20 with three new illustrations (included here in the gallery). Family portraits also included. Xo

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     


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